November 1, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Fourteen fund-raising appeals by charities won honors at the 72nd International Echo Awards Competition,
sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association, in New York.
The winners were chosen for creativity, marketing strategy, and the financial results of their appeals.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, in New York, won four separate awards for its fund-raising activities in its first year.
Fund raisers organized a multimedia campaign to mark the start of the charity’s operations, which coincided with the last episode of Spin City, Mr. Fox’s situation comedy. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder, and was leaving the television show to raise money to help find a cure for the disease.
Each advertisement incorporated Mr. Fox’s trademark sense of humor. For example, one television spot showed just the top half of the comedian’s head as he explained that the research effort was “just short” of finding a cure for the disease. “Story of my life,” quipped the actor, who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, as he poked his head into the frame.
The television and print ads, which cost only $8,650 to produce because most services were donated, resulted in nearly $2-million in donations to the foundation.
Another nonprofit group to win several awards in this year’s competition was Covenant House, in New York. The charity, which cares for homeless children and adolescents, raised more than $5-million with a Christmas appeal that included a letter from the group’s president and a holiday ornament.
In addition, the shelter received more than $3-million in donations from a campaign that encouraged previous donors to contribute an amount that would provide a bed and a blanket to a homeless youth. The appeal was mailed in September, when temperatures were beginning to drop, and told those in northern states that their donation would help prevent children from freezing outside.
To encourage donations from people in the South, the letter also explained that many shelters in those states become overly crowded in the winter as homeless people move south to escape the cold.
Several charities used creative packaging to draw attention to their mailed appeals. For instance, World Relief, in Baltimore, sent donors who had made a gift of $1,000 or more — or who had given $10,000 over their lifetimes — a colorful map of Mozambique that showed through the clear plastic tube in which it was mailed. The goal was to pique interest in the group’s efforts to rebuild a Mozambican village that was damaged by a flood.
