Social Engagement
Mercy Corps takes on two new projects that will enhance its mission, encourage advocates in its campaign against world hunger and poverty and, in time, produce a new crop of deeply involved donors.
March 2007 By David McKennaThe right projects can help an organization expand or enhance the breadth of services it offers or the reach of its service area. They can bring in new supporters and volunteers, or engage existing ones in new ways. And they can, ultimately, mean more donations.
As savvy as they come, Mercy Corps, a worldwide provider of emergency relief and economic development strategies, recently took on one such venture and is in the process of bringing another to life.
Based in Portland, Ore., Mercy Corps is highly skilled at quickly generating large amounts of donated money and goods for victims of disasters, and at helping with economic development strategies. Since 1979, it has provided $1 billion in assistance to people in 94 countries and currently runs development programs in more than 40 countries. So when exciting new opportunities surfaced in New York City, the largest philanthropic market in the world, Mercy Corps didn’t hesitate to explore them.
In January, Mercy Corps absorbed NetAid, the organization that had been formed in support of the 1999 world poverty-awareness concerts of the same name in New York, London and Geneva. The concerts themselves raised $15 million, but the Web-based organization left in their wake — dedicated to educating high-school students about world poverty and engaging them in advocacy — never became the robust fundraising vehicle organizers had hoped it would.
By merging with NetAid, Mercy Corps taps into a young audience with an already-demonstrated interest in its mission.
The organization’s other project, an interactive world hunger and poverty education center called the World Hunger Action Center, will open in New York in 2008. The 4,200-square-foot facility is being constructed on the ground floor of a condominium building in Manhattan’s Battery Park City, about a block from where the World Trade Center once stood.
Made possible by a rent-free lease and a $1.25 million grant from the Battery Park City Authority, WHAC is expected to draw about 100,000 visitors a year. Exhibits and films will explain the plight of poverty-stricken earthquake survivors in Pakistan, war refugees in Somalia, flood victims on the Gulf Coast and others. Once hooked by riveting true stories, visitors are more likely to listen when staffers explain to them how to get involved with groups and causes that fight poverty and hunger.
3015 SW 1st Ave.
Portland, OR 97201
Phone: 800.292.3355
On the Web: www.mercycorps.org
Mission: “Mercy Corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.” (www.mercycorps.org)
What It Does: “Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against nearly impossible odds.” (www.mercycorps.org)
History: “The organization was founded in 1979 as Save the Refugees Fund, a task force organized by Dan O’Neill in response to the plight of Cambodian refugees fleeing the famine, war and genocide of the ‘Killing Fields.’ This fledgling organization helped focus America’s attention on the humanitarian crisis and provided life-saving aid to hundreds of thousands of Cambodians. By 1981, we had expanded our work to other countries and renamed ourselves Mercy Corps International to reflect our broader mission. We quickly shifted from simply providing relief assistance to focusing on long-term solutions to hunger and poverty. Our first development project began in Honduras in 1982.” (www.mercycorps.org)
