10 Years of Conscious Giving
After 10 years of quietly finding local grassroots heroes around the world and helping them change the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in their communities, GO Campaign is finally coming into its own. What began as one man’s mission to help 25 orphans has now caught the attention of Hollywood, counting amongst its supporters Jodie Foster, Katie Perry, Vin Diesel, and Kate Hudson.
GO Campaign’s model is to identify, listen to, and partner with local heroes at the grassroots level who understand the problems facing children in their community and know best how to solve them. GO then connects these projects to the public, giving donors the choice of how they want their dollars spent. “It’s amazing,” says actor Robert Pattinson, who officially became GO Campaign’s Ambassador in 2015 along with actor Ewan McGregor. “It’s still completely unreal to me. I did this fund-raising thing, and ended up [helping] build a school in Cambodia. I remember thinking, ‘Wow!’ because I had never seen such a direct correlation between doing a charitable act and the actual brick and mortar reality of it.”
Though the giving is worldwide, the organization began started small and grew organically. In December 2005, Hollywood screenwriter Scott Fifer was feeling guilty that he hadn’t done much volunteer work lately. As a New York Wall Street attorney, Fifer used to do pro-bono work for nonprofits, plus he used to volunteer his time at nursing homes in his Greenwich Village neighborhood, but he’d lived a full 10 years in Los Angeles without doing any volunteer work and it started to gnaw on him. Then he saw the movie ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and felt even guiltier for not knowing anything about the war in Rwanda when it was happening. He decided to make up for his years of social neglect and he spent a month on a volunteer vacation in Tanzania that would forever transform his life.
“It was the best month of my life”, says Fifer, somewhat wistfully. I fell in love with those kids and I knew that I could do something to help them. So when he returned home to Los Angeles in 2016 he formed the nonprofit just to help those 25 kids in Tanzania. Now 10 years later, along with others who helped him grow the organization, GO Campaign has helped over 104,000 across 33 countries, including several projects benefitting children in the USA.
GO Campaign was created to help kids, but Fifer did not think that was enough of a reason to grow the organization. “GO was created to help children. But that alone is not enough of a reason for us to exist. If we just wanted to help children, we could give our money to any number of great organizations that help kids. The reason we exist is because we think differently. We’re not bogged down in red tape or politics. We ensure impact by listening to the people on the ground. Remarkable Local Heroes. We let them tell us what they need. Whether it’s a project in a big city like Chicago or a small village in Kenya, we always go in with an open mind and big ears. I started with those 25 kids, but today, together with our passionate Board, and our ridiculously hard working staff, and because of our donors, we’ve been able to change the lives of so many more children.”
GO Campaign believes that the world’s problems are not going to be solved by poverty geeks in boardrooms at the UN. They’re best addressed by grassroots leaders. Exactly the people GO identifies, GO vets, and GO works with to change the lives of children in their community. GO’s impressive roster of local heroes ranges from an unsung schoolteacher at a remote mountain school above the Sacred Valley of Peru to celebrated Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi of India. Because GO listens, the projects vary greatly. And that’s by design. GO Campaign has been compared to a really good investment fund– they take your dollars and invest them in children and they do it wisely, in a diverse portfolio, for maximum results. But the common thread is those heroes, their proven track record, their commitment to serving children, where the money is accountable, and results are quantifiable.
To be a conscious giver one needs to invest the time and energy to understand how organizations use the money you give them. These days it is not enough to feel good about giving money if you don’t take the time to know how your funds are being used. As GO Campaign’s Director of Programs, Michelle Costa, points out, “Whether you are buying a box of Girl Scout cookies or writing a check to support an annual fundraising campaign, you should know and understand how those funds are being spent. There are resources available that can help individuals be a responsible giver. GO Campaign ensures that funds get to the people that are working directly with the children and know exactly what they need. At GO Campaign, we encourage our donors to visit the projects or speak with our Local Heroes so they truly understand the impact of their donation.”
Each year at GO Campaign’s annual Hollywood Gala, the highlight of the evening are the Fund-a-Need auctions, where guests have the opportunity to pledge funds right on the spot for specific needs at projects around the world. At the most recent Gala, Local Hero Brenda Shuma came from Kilimanjaro to talk about her work with autistic and special needs children, and the crowd responded by funding the construction of a new kitchen and dining hall facility for the children. Celebrities such as Liam Hemsworth and Julia Ormond, in addition to Ambassadors Pattinson and McGregor, all raised their paddles to contribute, as did a majority of the 320 guests who sat under the stars in a museum courtyard in downtown L.A. But it’s not just celebrities that support GO. According to Fifer, the $10 and $50 donations made through the website add up during the year, and those donors are equally crucial to making sure no child is denied the opportunities they deserve. Last year ’60 Minutes’ aired a piece about GO’s Local Hero in Paraguay who founded the Recycled Orchestra – a youth orchestra that uses musical instruments made out of trash. The viewing public responded with a lot of $10 and $20 donations that made it possible for the orchestra to expand its music education program and reach a lot more impoverished children who were eager to join the successful orchestra that has completely transformed their community.
Whether it’s Harlem or Haiti, Compton or Cambodia, for 10 years GO Campaign has worked to make conscious giving both easy and impactful for people everywhere. It’s not only a working example of how one person can make a difference, but also proof that thoughtful and strategic philanthropy is not just a trend – it’s a way for us all to come together, connect, and change the course of future generations of children.
www.gocampaign.org
