The mission of the Call of Duty Endowment is to help U.S. and U.K. veterans find high-quality employment after military service, and to raise awareness of the value veterans bring to the workplace.
This May, the Call of Duty Endowment reached our goal of placing 100,000 veterans into meaningful employment two years ahead of schedule. Activision Blizzard also committed $30 million in additional funding to support the program for the next five years.
To celebrate this accomplishment and build greater awareness for the cause, we put a metaverse twist on a proven non-profit tactic: we kicked off a charity run. Instead of our run taking place on a road however, it happened inside Call of Duty, the #1 gaming franchise for the last 12 years globally.
To bring #CODVeteruns100K to life, we challenged players to virtually run 100km inside of Call of Duty Warzone. Activision allocated $1 for every 10km run in-game as part of a $1 million total donation, and further incentivized players to join the one-of-a-kind event by launching an in-game challenge with special award badges known as “calling cards” for each distance completed. A total of 3.1 million players earned a gold for 100km, silver for 50km, or bronze for 25km.
Based on the Warzone report pioneered by the Twitter and Call of Duty teams, players were able to track their distance traveled through a personalized report by tweeting @CallofDuty using the hashtag #CODVeteruns100K.
**Please note additional results are listed in the confidential information section:
Call of Duty Veteruns generated 137 million impressions, 14.2 million engagements, and 27.6 million video views.
The campaign also gained the attention of mainstream media, including Adweek, Adage, Washington Post, and more:
https://www.ign.com/articles/call-of-duty-warzone-hosting-virtual-charity-100km-race
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/05/25/call-duty-charity-run/
https://bleedingcool.com/games/call-of-duty-to-hold-first-in-game-charity-race-to-aid-veterans/
https://adage.com/creativity/work/call-duty-hosts-virtual-game-race-veterans-charity/2418631
