Giving Up an Hour’s Wage to Help Others

Each year Asha for Education, a New York charity that supports education projects in India, has asked its supporters to donate at least an hour’s worth of their salaries to finance its programs.

For the “Work an Hour” campaign’s 10th anniversary, Asha last year sought to connect donors — many of whom came from India or have family members there — more closely to the work the charity does.

The organization educated its supporters about child labor and what happened to young people deprived of education. In two months, the charity raised about $197,000 in gifts and pledges from thousands of donors.

The volunteer-run charity, a loosely organized group of about 66 chapters worldwide whose name means “hope” in Urdu, came up with its 2007 theme — “Better Schools, Better Retention Rates, Decreased Child Labor” — to highlight how spending time in classrooms can keep Indian children safe from exploitation and lift them from poverty, and how a lack of schooling can doom poor children to low-paying work.

Because of its decentralized structure and widely scattered affiliates, Asha’s publicity efforts are usually designed by each chapter. But the annual “Work an Hour” campaign brings together a committee of volunteers from affiliates around the world to create a standardized package of publicity materials.

“It helped create a sense of community,” says Gaurav Sarup, the 2007 Work an Hour coordinator. “When you’re working in a group that is so decentralized that you don’t get to see how the organization works, it was great to see 20 people come together.”

The publicity package for the most-recent campaign included news releases; 14 electronic “badges,” or donation links, that chapters could attach to e-mail messages; Web banners to highlight the drive on the local Asha Web sites; fliers and posters; a radio advertisement and a short Web video about the Work an Hour campaign; and advertising movie slides that groups could give to theaters.

Mr. Sarup says that since the organization relies heavily on word-of-mouth publicity, the materials were designed to encourage both the charity’s volunteers and other supporters to promote the fund-raising effort.

Through the Work an Hour Web site Asha supporters could also download and distribute those materials. People tacked up fliers and posters at gyms, community centers, coffeehouses, offices, and grocery stores, says Mr. Sarup.

The Web site not only enabled donors to explore Asha’s projects, learn about child labor, promote the organization, and make a gift, but it also provided a “beyond donations” section designed to keep supporters involved with Asha and the cause. There, donors found links to help them take action against child labor, including information on volunteering as a teacher in India, joining an Asha publicity team, or participating in one of the group’s international projects.

The site also linked to statistics, articles, and Web sites about child workers, and offered a forum to discuss related topics, like the issue of children working as domestic servants in India, a situation that the organization described as “commonplace.”

“Do you know if your own family in India employs a minor? Can you prevent the occurrence in your own home first?” Asha asked its Internet visitors, and encouraged them to write about their thoughts on the organization’s blog.

Asha hoped to help its donors become a bigger part of its projects and “learn how education is impacting child labor,” says Mr. Sarup. “People are not just satisfied with making a donation, they want to see further into the cause they are involved in.”