[The article chronicles how "a massive, 10-year expansion of its fundraising structure led to a 600 percent increase in revenue for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and a new world of health and security for the children it helps." Chip Lyons, Jeff Towers and Ed Lloyd were interviewed at length for this story as were USF board members Tony Pantaleoni and Tea Leoni.]
By ABNY SANTICOLA
A massive, 10-year expansion of its fundraising structure led to a 600 percent increase in revenue for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and a new world of health and security for the children it helps.
UNICEF is like no other organization in the world. Founded in 1946 to help children in post-war Europe, China and the Middle East, the organization now has 37 national committees and gives aid to disadvantaged children in 156 countries and territories, providing services that include immunization, education, health care, nutrition, clean water and sanitation.
The U.S. Fund for UNICEF was the first national committee established for the organization. In 1947, with the war over and the crisis in Europe subsiding, there were concerns about how to keep UNICEF funded. Up until that point, the U.S. government had been its sole supporter, but that wasn’t something the organization felt it could rely on as a sure thing. As a solution to the dilemma, the U.S. Committee for UNICEF was formed. Later renamed the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, the group took UNICEF’s fate out of the hands of the U.S. government and put it in the hands of the public; and it put the U.S. Fund for UNICEF on the road to becoming the international fundraising organization that it is today.
Helenka Pantaleoni was a co-founder of the U.S. Fund and served as its president for 25 years. A Broadway actress born to Polish musicians who had emigrated prior to the war, Pantaleoni had become involved with aid efforts following Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the loss of her husband, who died fighting for American forces. Her personal connection to the horrors of World War II and the suffering that resulted translated into a passion for her work with the U.S. Fund. Under her leadership, the organization raised $113 million, mostly through grass-roots efforts.
Pantaleoni’s passion not only helped raise support for UNICEF programs, encourage individual giving and increase public awareness of the challenges that children in need face throughout the world, but it also created a family tradition of giving back. Her son, Anthony Pantaleoni, is an attorney who has served on the board of directors for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for almost seven years and currently serves as the board’s vice chair; and her granddaughter, actress Tea Leoni, recently joined her father on the board and has been a U.S. Fund for UNICEF ambassador since 2003.
Each Pantaleoni was exposed to and came to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF on his or her own, and in his or her own way. It’s symbolic of the relationship the U.S. Fund for UNICEF historically has had with most of its supporters: exposing them when they’re young to the needs of children worldwide through grass-roots fundraising efforts, such as Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, and hoping the relationship builds an affinity that will translate into support and involvement when they become adults. It’s a strategy that has proved successful, but the organization found it was leaving needed funds on the table.
For the better part of its existence, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF has relied on funds raised through its Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF program and the sale of greeting cards. Started in 1950 by a Philadelphia Presbyterian minister and his family, Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF is a grass-roots program that encourages children and the community at large to go door to door on Halloween collecting funds for children worldwide.
The program has spread through word of mouth and now is national, with participants from every state. Those interested in participating order a free Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF kit, which includes a minimum of 10 orange collection boxes and fundraising resources such as a DVD that shows the work UNICEF is doing, posters, door hangers and education materials. The Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF Web drill-down page includes step-by-step fundraising guides to help participants devise a fundraising strategy. Children go door to door on Halloween collecting money in the collection boxes, and then can send the collected funds to UNICEF by Coinstar® machine, check or money order, or credit card. Parents and teachers also find additional ways to fundraise through events, parties and bake sales.
The program has created a community of supporters that have stepped up at other times of the year to fundraise for disasters like the tsunami. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF makes an effort through its TeachUNICEF program to maintain relationships with Trick-or-Treat participants and serve as a resource to schools. TeachUNICEF offers teachers lesson plans that educate students about the issues facing children and youths around the world, and shows how children’s lives are improving thanks to UNICEF.
The greeting cards are another grass-roots fundraising tool the organization employs. Jeff Towers, senior vice president for marketing, development and communications for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, says the organization pioneered the greeting-card business as a fundraising method, and it has sold more greeting cards in support of its causes than any other organization. UNICEF recently signed an exclusive partnership with Hallmark in which Hallmark will create and produce all of the organization’s U.S. greeting cards and sell them in its Gold Crown stores.
Clearly, the grass-roots efforts that have been the backbone of fundraising for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for many years have been taken to another level now by virtue of increased involvement from the community and partnerships with corporations. Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF — considered the organization’s iconic program — raised nearly $5 million in fiscal year 2006. Not bad for a grass-roots campaign. What’s more, it engages children in their first brush with philanthropy. As Chip Lyons, president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, says, if you stop someone on the street and mention UNICEF, there’s a good chance that she trick-or-treated when she was a kid. In fact, one of Tea Leoni’s first memories related to UNICEF is her public appearance on “Good Morning America” as a UNICEF trick-or-treater in a bear costume when she was 7.
“It’s everybody’s first attempt at philanthropy,” Leoni says. “You know, I look at my own kids this last Halloween, going out and this idea about ‘just ask.’ It couldn’t be portrayed in a more simplistic way. These kids walk up to a door bell, ring it and say ‘Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF.’ I think the idea that they can go out on that night and participate in helping raise money for kids who may not have what they have is … it’s priceless.”
Not long ago though, the organization realized the need to grow beyond these fundraising programs and diversify the way it raises money.
Greener pastures
Ten years ago, when Lyons accepted a temporary post as acting president that was supposed to last just three months, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF was under-performing as a fundraising organization. The fundraising focus was limited to Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF and the greeting-card program; major giving was near non-existent, as was foundation giving; and it was well below the national trend in the amount of funds raised from individuals.
Lyons’ objectives in leading the organization were twofold: declare that the U.S. Fund for UNICEF is a fundraising organization and be clear in communicating UNICEF’s financial challenges, and achieve a level of fundraising success commensurate with the wealth in the marketplace. While the American public gives a great deal to charitable causes, only about 2 percent of those charitable donations go to international causes.
“It just became really clear to me that we had to put a lot more energy and professionalism into telling UNICEF’s story because it’s a rare person that doesn’t want to help UNICEF do its job when they understand how UNICEF works and the results it gets for children,” Lyons says. But it’s one thing to declare you’re going to be a fundraising organization, another thing entirely to build a team of professionals that know how to market, know how to work with the media, know how to cultivate and build relationships with major donors, and who see the centrality of a board of directors that are advocates, spokespersons and fundraisers for the organization.
Towers elaborates, “It starts with having the right people. The right people on the board, the right people in leadership, the right people managing programs. But then it was creating strategies specific to the individual programs that worked. You can’t experience fundraising success without getting competent professionals managing programs with sound strategies specific to those individual programs.”
The organization became more sophisticated and professional in its staff recruitment efforts, diversified its fundraising channels, took advantage of times when there was a heightened awareness of international causes and leveraged its relationship with the media, among other things.
For each individual program — e.g., bequests, direct mail, major gifts — the U.S. Fund for UNICEF looked to best practices within the sector as a guide. In terms of major gifts, for example, it recognized the need to establish relationships and better qualify donors, so it was focusing on those donors with the greatest capacity to give. It also began looking at corporate partnerships from the corporation’s perspective, asking how the corporation wants to promote its own objectives by partnering with UNICEF.
The result of these efforts is astounding. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF has grown from raising slightly more than $60 million in 1997 to raising more than $363 million in contributions in fiscal year 2006 — a near 600 percent increase.
Individual giving accounted for 61 percent of the organization’s cash income in 2006, up from about 49 percent in 2002. The fundraising program is much more diversified now, as well, with direct marketing representing 27 percent of total cash income; major gifts, 18 percent; corporate partnerships, 13 percent; planned giving, 11 percent; Internet, 9 percent; greeting cards, 8 percent; foundations, 6 percent; and Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, now a mere 3 percent. “It’s quite a story of success that few people are aware of,” Towers remarks. “And now, in total, we’re one of the top fundraising organizations.”
Today, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s fundraising program is structured into three primary units: marketing, communications and corporate partnerships; direct and interactive marketing; and development. The marketing, communications and corporate partnerships group is responsible for branding, messaging, marketing, celebrity relations, and corporate partnerships and sponsorships. According to Towers, of the total $147.4 million in cash raised by the organization in the last fiscal year, this group raised $19.4 million in cash. It also accounted for $227 million in contributed products and services, namely medicines and medical supplies.
The development group, which is responsible for major gifts, planned gifts and foundation giving, raised about $40 million last year. But the largest source of cash revenue is the direct and interactive marketing group, which raised close to $60 million in cash in the last fiscal year. This group is responsible for all individual contributions. This includes the organization’s direct-mail program, which is comprised of five major components: house-file mailings; prospect mailings; donor acquisition; a pledge program; and a tribute-card program. It also handles telemarketing, Internet And sales of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s renowned greeting cards, and management of the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF program.
Working the Web
The Internet is one channel that has come on strong as a source of fundraising for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF in the past two years. According to Towers, in fiscal year 2006 the organization raised more than $13.4 million online, an astronomical jump from the $1.5 million it raised online two years ago. This growth was sparked by the Southeast Asia tsunami at the end of 2004. At its peak, the organization was raising $5 million a day online for tsunami relief. Through a concerted effort, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF has been able to maintain a high level of online activity post-tsunami, a testament to the organization’s retention efforts of tsunami donors.
Very quickly after the tsunami, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF put in place a donor-retention strategy to try to keep the roughly 260,000 tsunami-acquired donors, which involved thanking them for their gifts and reporting on how their money was being used.
“We were not immediately hitting them up for additional contributions, but we had a communications strategy that sought to keep them informed and engaged,” Towers says.
Emergency-responsive donors are known to be less likely to be ongoing donors who buy into an organization, preferring to respond on an emergency basis, he says. Recognizing this, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF made sure that outbound communication to these donors was kept emergency-specific. The organization’s ongoing efforts to keep children around the world alive means its messaging is always cloaked in emergency language. Using this messaging to show how children in developing countries are dealing with an emergency of one type or another every day, the organization was able to show the urgency of its ongoing programs and services and better engage these donors.
This strategy proved effective. “Industry experience says only about 5 [percent] to 8 percent of your emergency donors are ones who will stay with you,” Towers says. “We’re doing between 12 [percent] and 15 percent, I think because of what our communications strategy was, which simply applied best practices learned in direct marketing.”
The organization’s ability to accommodate and maintain the onslaught of visitors to its Web site during the tsunami response was a result of changes it previously had made to its technological infrastructure, its development of a robust fundraising site, its emergency-response team — which had tsunami-related messaging up on the site within hours of the disaster — and its public-relations team, which leveraged media contacts to drive the public to the Web. This growth was made possible thanks to a board that has been supportive of the investments the organization has needed to make to step up its fundraising programs.
“When the tsunami hit, we had already begun to prepare ourselves, not for the tsunami, but for the kind of geometric growth we were looking for in our fundraising in general,” says Edward Lloyd, CFO and senior vice president of finance and operations. “And the benefit of that, of course, is that we are able to respond to emergencies.
“But also the core resources of the organization have benefitted from that in a significant way as well,” he adds. “So we kind of got a hold of the momentum, put a harness on the momentum, and now it has become a part of our DNA as far as how we move forward and do business.”
No board boredom
To keep it supportive and understanding of the organization’s changing needs, each fundraising program now reports to the board of directors on its return on investment, because, as Lloyd says, “It’s not just throwing balls up in the air and hoping they come down someplace. It’s looking at the variables that lead to a successful return on investment, and that really has made a huge difference.”
Along with a fundraising overhaul and increased professionalism in the recruitment of staff, recruitment of board members who can add to the organization’s renewed focus on fundraising has become much more sophisticated. Anthony Pantaleoni says that when considering prospective board members, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF seeks to bring on people from different geographic areas with different viewpoints, backgrounds and experiences to create a well-rounded board. However, the fundraising obligations of board members is one of the main things the organization stresses.
“We would expect that anybody getting on the board would have UNICEF as one of their top three priorities in charitable giving,” he says.
Board members for the U.S. Fund do more than give to the organization. Pantaleoni and Leoni say several board members have held cultural events where they’ll invite people who have given to the organization or have shown interest in the work the U.S. Fund for UNICEF does to their house to listen to UNICEF workers on the front lines talk about the organization first hand. When the speakers finish, the event is opened up for general discussion among guests.
“One of the things that makes the evening so interesting is that with UNICEF’s incredible international community, we’re able to pull some of our UNICEF field workers to come and speak to people in these intimate circles and tell them about the work that’s being done and about the need for support,” Leoni adds.
Stewardship is another responsibility of U.S. Fund board members. Pantaleoni says it’s board members’ task to call people who have donated to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and thank them for their gifts.
“And that’s all. Not ask for more money, but just thank them. And it’s been very, very effective because people are just overwhelmed when you take the time to call them up and express your gratitude,” he says.
Closing the loop
The stewardship efforts of the board and other efforts to report back to donors about the results their donations have helped achieve is crucial for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, as donors probably will never see the children they’re investing in.
“In some cases, we’re actually talking about almost an abstraction, because [the children are] living in Chad or Darfur or in the mountains of Pakistan. It’s a challenge to make it vivid, and help people make that connection,” Lyons says. “Probably the single most important thing that we do is also communicate again to them that because of their help, millions of women have been immunized against tetanus, thereby protecting themselves and their babies. Millions of children are alive today that wouldn’t otherwise be because they have been protected by bed nets or given vitamin supplements,” he adds.
It’s a communication piece that for other, more localized organizations takes the form of a walk around campus or a walk through the hospital or a visit to the soup kitchen. But for the U.S. Fund it requires relaying visits to the field through pictures and words, and it relies heavily on media support.
“It’s important for us to keep communicating that to our donors, and we do because we think it’s important to celebrate the successes, ensure that their contribution to us is a sound investment and that we’re delivering on the promise. Those are messages that we try to reinforce over and over again,” Towers says.
The need for this communication has grown as the organization has, from its grass-roots beginnings to what it is today. The organization has come a long way from a focus on greeting cards and trick-or-treating to a focus on things like major gifts. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s expanded fundraising program has made it better able to live up to the mission Helenka Pantaleoni helped lay out for it nearly 60 years ago. Her son believes she would be very proud of what the organization she worked so hard to establish has become today.
“I think she’d be absolutely overwhelmed. She would be just in awe because it has gone from a small, struggling, wonderful charity — I mean, she did wonderful things — to a much larger, much more complex structure,” he says.
U.S. Fund for UNICEF
333 E. 38th St., New York, NY 10016
Web site: www.unicefusa.org
Phone: 800.4UNICEF
Operating Budget (2006): $373.6 million
Contributed Revenue (2006): $363.1 million
Courtesy of http://www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com
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