Designing your game economy

Points are what make Organiz feel like a game. As an admin you decide how many points each action is worth, so it helps to understand how the pieces fit together and what makes a healthy economy.

How the weekly cycle works

• The campaign progress bar and the leaderboard run on a weekly cycle. They reset at the start of each week, so every member starts the new week on a level footing. The reset happens at midnight Pacific time on Monday, whatever time zone your members are in.
• Levels are different. They reflect the total points a member has earned over their whole time on Organiz and never reset. Spending points on rewards does not lower a member's level.
• A member can earn up to a daily point cap across all actions. The default is 250 points a day. After a member hits the cap, actions still work but stop awarding points until the next day. You can change the cap on the Economy settings page.

The weekly reset is the heart of the design. It keeps the competition fresh, gives new members a fair shot, and gives you a natural rhythm to organize around.

Set values with tiers

You do not have to hand pick a point number for every action and reward. Instead you choose how important each one is, and Organiz works out the points for you. This keeps your economy balanced as you add and remove things over time.

Importance tiers on actions

Every action has an importance tier. You pick the tier and Organiz fills in the points.

• Minor is for a quick, low effort action like tapping a link.
• Standard is the everyday action, like signing a petition.
• Major is a real commitment, like RSVPing to an event or making a call.
• Featured is a hero action you want to stand out.

New actions start on a sensible tier for their type. If you ever want an exact number, turn on Override and type it in. An overridden action is pinned and keeps its value when you change other settings.

Value tiers on rewards

Rewards work the same way with a value tier.

• Small is an entry level reward.
• Medium is your typical reward.
• Large is a premium reward.
• Premium is your top tier reward.

The cost of a reward comes from its tier and the challenge level below. As with actions, you can turn on Override to pin an exact cost.

The challenge level

The challenge level is the one setting that decides how hard members work for a reward. You set it as the number of standard actions it should take to afford a Medium reward.

• A lower number is easier. Members reach rewards faster.
• A higher number is harder. Rewards take longer to earn.

When you change it, Organiz re-prices every reward that is not pinned. The page shows you roughly how many actions and days a Medium reward will take so you can feel the effect before you save.

Where to find these settings

The Points Economy page has two tabs.

• Game Balance holds the two dials that shape the challenge: Campaign progression and Reward pricing. It also has the Campaign end date and the Reset action points and Reset reward prices buttons.
• Points Defaults holds the daily point cap and the point values for things other than actions, like check-ins and referrals.

Campaigns with a deadline

The challenge level prices rewards as if members can keep earning for as long as they like. A campaign that ends on a set day works differently. An election on November 3 gives members only so many days to earn, and the daily point cap limits each of those days. A reward priced for months of earning can end up out of reach.

Set a campaign end date and Organiz checks every active reward against it.

1. Go to Settings, then Economy, and stay on the Game Balance tab.
2. Under Campaign End Date, pick the last day of your campaign and select Save End Date.
3. Read the summary. It shows how many days members have left and the most one member can earn in that time. That number assumes they hit the daily cap and check in every day, so most members earn a lot less.
4. Check the Rewards to check list. A reward marked Can't be earned in time costs more than anyone can earn before the end date. A reward marked Very hard is only reachable for a member who nearly maxes out every day.
5. To fix prices in one step, select Use suggested level. Organiz suggests a challenge level that makes your top reward a real stretch that a committed member can still reach. You see a preview before anything changes.
6. Rewards with a price you set by hand keep it. Lower those yourself, or use Reset Reward Prices and choose to clear overrides.

The same warnings show on the Rewards page next to each reward's price.

The end date is only a warning. Nothing stops members from earning or redeeming after it. When the campaign is over, select Clear to remove the date.

Campaign progression

The weekly goal is not a fixed number. It recalibrates every week from how many members were active the week before, so it keeps pace as your community grows.

The progression level sets how high that goal aims. You set it as the points each active member is expected to contribute in a week, with three shortcuts.

• Easy is a lower weekly goal. Campaigns reach their levels sooner.
• Normal is the default pace.
• Hard is a higher goal that takes more from the whole community.

The page shows the rough number of standard actions per member that the goal works out to, so you can feel the pace before you save. Changing the progression level only affects future weeks. A week already in progress keeps its goal.

This level is the default for every campaign. A single campaign can set its own level on its Settings tab in the page builder, which is handy when one campaign should be tougher or easier than the rest. A campaign that does not set its own follows the organization default here.

Campaign size and the first week

The weekly goal is driven mostly by how many members take part. From week two on that comes from real activity, but week one has no history to go on. So on a campaign's Settings tab you can set its size: about how many members you expect to take part each week, as a simple range. That seeds the first week's goal so a big campaign does not launch with a tiny target, and a small one does not launch with an out of reach one. Pick the closest range, or leave it as not sure to start on the default. Real activity takes over after the first week either way, so a rough estimate is all you need.

Best practices

Match the tier to the effort

Give small actions a low tier and high impact actions a higher one. A quick link tap should be Minor, signing a petition Standard, and an event RSVP or a call Major. Save Featured for the actions that matter most to your campaign right now. Because the points come from the tier, your whole catalog stays in proportion.

Lean into the weekly reset

Because the progress bar and leaderboard reset each week, treat each week as its own push. Add or refresh a few CTAs at the start of the week so there is always something new to do. Frame the progress bar as a shared weekly goal the whole community is working toward together.

Keep values stable

Members learn what actions are worth. Changing point values often makes the economy feel random and can lead to point inflation. Pick values you are happy with and keep them steady. When you want to drive a specific action, feature it or run a short term boost on purpose rather than quietly raising everything.

Use the daily cap as a guardrail

The daily cap stops anyone from running up a huge score on trivial actions. Design your week so a motivated member can make real progress through genuine actions, not by grinding the same low value task. Raise or lower the cap on the Economy settings page to match how active your community is.

Tune non-CTA earning only when you need to

Check-ins, streaks, kudos, referrals, campaign tier rewards, and a member's first comment on a YouTube/Livestream CTA come with sensible default values. The Points Economy settings page lets you change any of them for your organization. Most teams leave these on their defaults. Reach for them when a source feels too rich or too thin for your community, then leave them steady.

Reset prices when the catalog drifts

If you have pinned a lot of values by hand over time, the Reset Reward Prices button sets rewards back to their tier based prices at your current challenge level in one step. It shows you a preview of every change first, and you can undo it right after if it is not what you wanted.

Reset action points the same way

Actions can drift too. The Reset Action Points button re-derives every action's points from its importance tier, so the whole campaign comes back into proportion in one step. Pinned actions keep their hand set value unless you also choose to clear overrides. As with rewards, you see a preview first and can undo right after.

Do not punish spending

Levels track points earned, not points left, so redeeming a reward never sets a member back. Price rewards so that redeeming feels like a real reward but is still reachable. Members should feel good spending, not afraid to.

Reward coming back

Streaks and check ins reward members for returning across the week. Pair these with the weekly reset so there is always a reason to come back tomorrow, not just today.

Next steps