FarmVille’s Sweet Seeds Raise $487K For Charity

Today Zynga announced that the company's Sweet Seeds for Haiti promotion in its FarmVille social game had raised over $487,500 for the Haitian charities FATEM.org and FUNKOZE.org. Since it is known that 50% of all proceeds from the Sweet Seeds for Haiti sweet potato seed virtual item go to charity, that means Zynga generated nearly $1 million in revenue through sales of that single virtual good alone. 

"At FATEM, Zynga's contribution will help make local residents of the town of Mirebalais become self-sufficient by providing one of the most important tools against poverty: education," said Jacky Poteau, president of FATEM, in a press statement. "Zynga has made it possible for over 500 children to have full access to quality education."

With a user community 56 million strong, FarmVille is not just the largest social game but is in fact the largest online game of any type. Sweet Seeds for Haiti is not the first Zynga charity goods promotion– previously there was a charity drive for the San Francisco SPCA in the company's YoVille virtual world that involved purchasing special virtual pets– but it does appear to be extraordinarily successful thanks to the sheer size of the FarmVille community. 

Zynga's YoVille promotion raised $20,000 for the SPCA branch it was working with. Sony Online Entertainment raised over $20,000 for the Child's Play charity through sales of a range of virtual goods in its EverQuest and EverQuest II games. The entire myYearbook community raised $250,000 for charity donations through virtual goods sales. Zynga's Sweet Seeds for Haiti promotion in FarmVille may in fact be the single largest amount of money raised for charity through sale of specific virtual goods to date. 

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