Filipino Gen Zs and Gen Alphas spend nearly 8 hours every day burning billions of data bytes on doomscrolling, gaming, streaming, and content creation. But when it comes to contributing to real-world social causes, they’ve shaped the self-perception that they cannot make meaningful contributions.
The youth are already struggling financially like no other generation. And in the Philippines, traditional models of social contribution persist. Monetary donations with no transparency. One-time volunteerism, donation shaming, and previous generations and institutions have failed to capture the youth’s sensibilities with these methods.
As the country’s leading digital provider and advocate of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Globe aims to promote social good through digital growth and sustainability. It posed a challenge: What if used-up data can be reused for social good?
A New Concept of Sustainability Emerged: Data Sustainability
Even intangible digital resources like mobile data can be transformed into a renewable resource for social good. Globe brought this to life through GoGIVE, a platform that can harness data burn, giving it a second life as GoGIVE Hearts that powers real-world advocacies. It repurposed GlobeOne, the data management app for prepaid subscribers. Simply opt in to GoGIVE, pick your advocacy to start earning hearts. When the collective goal is reached, it unlocks data donations to five advocacy groups. Giving a much-needed digital upgrade in child education, animal welfare and rescue, women’s livelihood training, endangered wildlife protection, and healthcare.
GoGIVE users forgo the extra steps usually required to make a donation through online payments as the system works in the background while our youth audiences use their phones the way they always do. The feature automatically converts gigabytes of data (a technical metric) into hearts, a token that has social meaning. It reimagines something as mundane as burning through data as a vehicle for generosity.
Users can track their hearts and how much they have accumulated, engaging them in gamified giving. There is an instant feedback loop, motivating users to earn more hearts. Users can allot hearts to their choice of advocacy, personalizing the act of giving and making the experience more satisfying. In short, GoGIVE embeds giving into users’ daily mobile routines.
Doomscrolling Converts to Hope-Generating
All five traditional advocacy groups supported by Globe are virtually invisible to the youth online. TikTok launched the #GoGIVEyourHeart Challenge. Secret hand heart gestures were developed. Once recognized by the algorithm, virtual hearts interacted with the TikToker and revealed the partner advocacy. That’s how GoGIVE filled the feeds with advocacies and led the youth to opt for the app.
This led to a social campaign 150% stronger than Southeast Asian counterparts and a 43% rise in participation, setting a new standard in the region. GoGIVE became the country’s first TikTok for Good.
Within months of launch, two major earthquakes rocked the nation. GoGIVE opened time-sensitive donations. This revealed the concept's true potential as a rapid, youth-driven social impact platform. The speed at which assistance arrived was faster than traditional ways of giving.
2.2 billion hearts were generated within five months. These have completed four advocacies to date: Animal Rescue (PAWS), Child Education (World Vision), Cebu Earthquake Relief (Ayala Foundation), and Davao Earthquake Relief (Philippine Eagle Foundation). Several are still ongoing: Women’s Livelihood Training (Project P.E.A.R.L.S), Wildlife Protection (Philippine Eagle Foundation), and Healthcare Digitalization (PGH Foundation).
Beyond being a donation portal, GoGIVE establishes a giving-based economy. It connects advocacy to complement the youth’s digital behaviors, making participation playful, visible, and viral. Social media mechanics, like the #GoGIVEYourHeartChallenge, turn philanthropy into a fun, shareable activity. By linking digital consumption with social outcomes, GoGIVE drives sustainable giving and normalizes the idea that simple online activity can translate to real-world impact. Ultimately, using GoGIVE as the engine for data sustainability has rewritten the way Filipino youth can give. It has redefined the ways of donating to charity and how youth perceive their abilities to contribute.
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PSE: GLO
