Charity’s Clever Promotions Attract Headlines and Contributions

Keep hunger in the headlines — that’s the goal of the communications staff at America’s Second Harvest. But since press releases

often fail to interest reporters and editors, the food-bank network sometimes uses more-creative approaches to win news coverage and to promote fund-raising and other events.

For example, the charity created a nine-piece puzzle enclosed in a generic-looking food can and included it in an invitation to its fifth annual National Hunger Awareness Day. The event is held in Washington every four years to educate the public and donors about the cause.

The puzzle, when completed, depicted young and old faces with the following message: “The face of hunger will surprise you. More than 38 million Americans are on the brink of hunger, including nearly 14 million children. Thank you for being part of the solution.”

It cost $1,400 to produce 1,000 copies of the puzzle — 500 of which were sent to national press and donors. Second Harvest distributed the remaining puzzles to local food banks to use when they promote their own hunger-awareness events.

The puzzles helped attract 150 people to the event, about a third more than Second Harvest officials had hoped, and the meeting received live coverage on C-Span, says Maura Daly, communications director at the charity.

In another promotion last year, conducted in coordination with Southwest Airlines, Second Harvest relied on a bright-red plastic lunchbox to grab attention. One hundred such lunchboxes, which cost Southwest $1,000 to produce, were designed to draw local reporters and other key people to an event celebrating the company’s 35th anniversary and to generate a month’s worth of cash and food donations for Second Harvest.

Each lunchbox held two pieces of bread, containers of peanut butter and jelly, peanuts, and mints. A label inside read, “The airline that made the peanut famous introduces ‘Spread the Luv.’ How do you thank 62 communities across the country for 35 amazing years? Find out May 30 at Love Field,” the Dallas airport that serves as Southwest’s headquarters.

The campaign’s name, “Spread the Luv,” was a play on the company’s three-letter designation, LUV, on the New York Stock Exchange. The campaign included an online food-bank appeal on the airline’s Web site throughout June that asked visitors to donate cash that could then be used to buy peanut butter for local food banks. All contributions, up to $35,000, were matched by Southwest dollar for dollar. Airline employees in the 62 cities that are Southwest destinations also collected peanut butter for local food banks.

Organizers chose June for the promotion because Second Harvest has dubbed it “the hungriest month.” Children stop getting school lunches in June every year, a fact that led naturally to the use of lunchboxes in the promotion, says Melanie Jones, a Southwest spokeswoman.

The campaign goal was to raise $70,000 but nearly $135,000 was donated in response to the promotion.

And in Dallas alone 5,920 pounds of peanut butter were collected. Meanwhile, about 1,500 people attended the kick-off event at Love Field, including reporters from Dallas news organizations who produced four reports about the campaign on local television shows, as well as a radio broadcast and a short article in The Dallas Morning News.

“It made so much sense to attract attention to the cause we were promoting,” Ms. Jones says. “Yes, it does cost money, but the attention was worth it.”