Christian humanitarian charity World Vision will publicly launch a $1 billion capital campaign this weekend. The Every Last One campaign, the group’s largest-ever fund drive, aims to meet its ambitious goal by 2023 to help 60 million people around the world lift themselves out of poverty.
The money will support programs that provide clean water and faith-based life-skills training and education; boost economic recovery and maternal and child health; and protect youth from violence, among other areas.
It’s not a coincidence that World Vision is publicly launching this drive now as the pandemic still looms large, said Mercy Novak, director of the campaign. “Infection rates might be going down but the long-term effects of Covid will be with us for a while.”
Poverty rates are going up for the first time in 20 years. And World Vision is armed with evidence that its project model makes people more resilient — that the families in its programs were not affected by the pandemic as much as other people.
“There’s a new understanding of the sense of powerlessness people in poverty feel,” Novak said. “The past year, the whole world has experienced that personally.”
Zoom Instead of Planes
Planning for the campaign began back in October 2015. World Vision had just completed its For Every Child campaign, which raised more than $500 million, and fundraisers asked donors how they would feel about another major drive so close on its heels.
The results so far provide an answer: As of March, the organization had raised $773 million toward the $1 billion goal.
Last year was an exceptional fundraising year for World Vision, which raised more than $1.2 billion in 2020. The charity’s pandemic emergency response is part of this campaign, so much of the money raised last year counts toward the goal.
When the pandemic started, many organizations grappled with how to approach their major campaigns. Most opted to press ahead with their plans, though some timelines, fundraising priorities, and cultivation techniques have evolved. And organizations continue to announce eye-popping campaign goals as the fog of the pandemic lifts.
World Vision’s 27 fundraisers who focus on major donors are working on the campaign, and the charity plans to hire three more. Fifteen midlevel fundraisers are also raising money to support the campaign, and about 15 others who focus on foundations and corporations also support the effort.
While some donors are passionate about supporting a specific project or country where World Vision works, the charity has seen an increase in unrestricted revenue in recent years. “It speaks to the trust our donors have,” Novak said.
Fundraisers have had to adjust to running a campaign in the virtual realm, but they’ve found ways to keep supporters connected to the work on the ground. The charity’s Vision Trips, which once took donors overseas to see the impact firsthand, are now online affairs. Field staff come on camera to talk about their work in a local community.
“It really brings the work to life for someone living here to really understand what poverty is like in developing countries,” Novak said.
People are eager to go back, of course, but World Vision’s major donors have been exceptionally generous in the past year, she said.
During the quiet phase of a campaign, there’s no splashy announcement on the charity’s website. The public launch aims to reach a broader network of donors.
The campaign will be announced this weekend at World Vision’s virtual annual conference. By the Tuesday before the announcement, around 1,000 people had registered for the free event. In the past, the two-day in-person event accommodated only about 200.
Fundraisers will begin using social media and other digital channels to spread the message. And they’ll continue to lean on volunteer fundraisers, who have been heavily involved since the start of the quiet phase. Groups of volunteers including the charity’s National Leadership Council, made up of the highest level of donors; the World Vision Visionaries, which tend to be younger committed donors; and the Women of Vision will go out to their networks and work with fundraising staff to connect with others.
Before the pandemic, those volunteers were hopping on planes. Now they’re getting on Zoom.
“Those communities have been growing over the last five years,” Novak said. “We honestly could not have made the progress we’ve made without them.”
Some philanthropy prognosticators have predicted philanthropy will return to prepandemic patterns of giving in 2021. Is World Vision concerned?
“Being realistic, we always want to estimate conservatively what the future trajectory of our fundraising will look like,” Novak said. Officials at the organization have planned out several economic scenarios but are hopeful that supporters with a personal connection to the charity’s work will continue to support its antipoverty mission.
