Star Widens Refugee Group’s Appeal

Well-publicized natural disasters and armed conflicts often swell the coffers

of charities that help victims deal with their loss and suffering.

USA for UNHCR, for example, has had “a really exciting fall,” says its executive director, Jeffrey Meer.

Television coverage of Afghans displaced from their homes by drought and violence has stimulated an outpouring of support for the organization. Its revenues so far this year have surpassed $2.5-million, compared with about $500,000 in all of 2000.

The U.S. charity, like similar ones in other countries, supports the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is charged with protecting more than 22 million people worldwide, including refugees, internally displaced people, and former refugees who are returning to their homes.

The commissioner’s office gets only a small part of its budget from the United Nations, and depends heavily on private donations and payments from national governments.

Following the impoundment of its mail in a Maryland postal facility because of anthrax concerns, USA for UNHCR cut back on letters to its supporters and stopped all prospect mailings to recruit new donors. Instead, the Washington charity has relied in part on newspaper ads and its Web site to spread the message about its work.

But most important, perhaps, have been television appearances and journal entries posted on the charity’s Web site by its celebrity spokeswoman, Angelina Jolie.

The popular actress became familiar with the work of the UNHCR when filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in Cambodia. She offered to speak on its behalf — an affiliation that has enabled USA for UNHCR and the other charities that support the U.N. agency to extend their reach to a new generation.

“Conventional wisdom is that the age range of people interested in United Nations issues begins at 65,” says Mr. Meer. “Angelina Jolie has proved that’s not the case. In the 12-year history of this charity, I don’t believe we’d ever received fan mail from women below the age of 25, but we’re getting it on a regular basis now.”

The charity’s Web site received 120,000 hits the day Ms. Jolie’s journal of her visit to Cambodia was posted there, compared with about 1,000 hits on a normal day.

Her accounts of visits to Cambodia, Africa, and Pakistan form a substantial part of the site’s content — a sign of how important a role they play in building support for the charity’s work. The journals have been translated into French, German, and Japanese.

More than 1,500 people have contributed online since mid-September, with an average gift of $140 — compared with $27 on average from direct-mail donors.

On the whole, donors who respond to Web appeals are considerably younger than those who answer mailed requests, Mr. Meer suspects. And converting them into regular supporters could be a big help in smoothing out fluctuations in revenue.

“News has a huge effect on our budget,” says Mr. Meer. “We’d like to get to the point where we have a baseline of support independent of the CNN factor. That’s our goal, but we’re not there yet.”

With its popular good-will ambassador, however, it is coming close.

“We’re finding a way,” he says, “to energize young people about the U.N. and refugees, which historically has been very difficult to do.”