League of Legends and Valorant creator Riot Games has announced the latest milestone of its Social Impact Fund, officially having raised $50 million in support of nonprofits, communities and organisations globally.
This major sum has been reached in less than five years, with the Social Impact Fund having first launched in 2019 to “empower players to give back to their communities”.
A legendary game
Riot Games’ fund allows the company to make direct investments into nonprofits, supporting more than 450 across 28 regions through a partnership with ImpactAssets. This has included support in education, citizenship and more.
After the fund’s inception, the first big fundraiser built around the 1000th League of Legends skin Dawnbringer Karma, which marked an important moment in the game’s history, releasing after more than 10 years on from launch. Players who bought this skin raised more than $6 million for charity in doing so.
“Since early in League’s history, empowering players to give back has been an integral part of the game. But the reality is donating to global nonprofits isn’t the simplest process. So, in 2019, we launched the Riot Games Social Impact Fund. Now in 2023, the original mission remains the same: Give Riot, and thus players, an easier, more scalable way to make greater change globally,” Riot posted online.
Importantly, Riot’s fund puts the power in players’ hands not only in fundraising, but in where the money goes: They are able to vote for charities to support in their own regions through the yearly Charity Voting Campaign.
A valiant cause
Where League of Legends existed long before the Social Impact Fund and found ways to incorporate charity support after the fact, Riot’s next big game Valorant launched one year after the fund began, in 2020. The Riot team had already been considering unique ways in which players could support through the new title and came up with the Give Back Bundle.
This meant that throughout Valorant’s first year, players could vote to bring their favourite skins back with 50% of proceeds from those returning skins going towards the fund. It proved to be such a success that Riot has turned this into an annual tradition, raising almost $15 million in the three years so far.
Krafton recently invested $7 million in a former Riot Games artist to support Studio Sai’s second project.
