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Campaign Update 2004
: A shared success
Hope & History
:: A Shared Success
The
Worldwide Ireland Funds’ five-year, $100
million “Hope & History” campaign
has come to an exciting and gratifying conclusion.
Although gifts are still being accepted - and therefore
the total is not yet official - it is clear that
gifts to the campaign will exceed $107 million.
“
This is a wonderful end to a wonderful story,” said
Loretta Brennan Glucksman,
Chairman of The American Ireland Fund.
“We have a lot to be proud of,” echoed Sir Anthony O’Reilly,
Chairman of The Worldwide Ireland Funds, “and a lot to be thankful for.
A success like this was no sure thing, back when this all started. It reflects
the hard work of a committed corps of volunteers, as well as the deep affection
that Irish people around the world feel for Ireland.”
The
story began in 1998, when the Board of The American
Ireland Fund began
thinking carefully about their organization’s
mission and scope. Over the prior three decades,
the Funds had raised $100 million in the United States
to fund projects in Ireland. Much good had been accomplished—and
yet, much more remained to be done. Although the
AIF was distributing more money every year, only
1 in 11 worthy causes could be funded.
“This was particularly troubling for us,” as AIF President and CEO
Kingsley Aikins recalls, “because we had something like four dozen advisors ‘on
the ground’ in all parts of Ireland, turning up deserving projects and
organizations. And then we had to turn down ten out of every eleven grant proposals.”
The board began thinking about raising significant new resources—at a level
that would dramatically increase the
organization’s impact. Discussions with educator and development expert
Scott N. Nichols in the spring of 1998 advanced the cause (see interview), and
the $100 million target began being considered seriously. A feasibility study
was conducted at the behest of the board. Then, at a June 1998 board meeting,
Sir Anthony O’Reilly created new momentum by pledging $5 million to the
proposed effort.
Going public
O’Reilly’s pledge initiated what is known
as the “quiet phase” of the campaign.
It also signalled the beginning of a great deal of
work on the part of Board Directors and AIF staffers.
Up to this point, the AIF’s fundraising had
mainly been limited to dinners, golf outings and
similar events. No one knew if the organization had
the
capacity to mount a $100 million effort. Nor was
it clear whether the members of the “Irish
diaspora”—the millions of people around
the world of Irish descent—would support an
effort on this scale.
One person who believed the $100 million goal was achievable was Loretta Brennan
Glucksman. She and her husband Lewis
L. Glucksman had long been supporters of Irish causes.
“Obviously,” said Loretta at the time, “this is a really, really
big number. But The Ireland Funds is the leading organization raising money for
Ireland, period. If we can’t hit this number, then it
doesn’t bode well for those issues that are so dear to our hearts. We
have to hit this number.” Fortunately, the AIF board called upon its
own membership, as well as other friends of the organization, to create a $38
million nucleus fund. By June
2000, the effort was ready to go public.
During three days of events and ceremonies in Dublin and Belfast—attended
by Irish President Mary McAleese and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, among other
prominent supporters of the cause—the campaign was formally launched.
The components of “Hope & History”
By this time, the effort had a formal name: “Hope & History: The
Ireland Fund’s Campaign for Ireland.” The phrase was borrowed from
Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney’s poem, The Cure at Troy, which includes
the following stanzas:
History says, Don’t
hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
“It struck us as a particularly apt message,” recalls
Kingsley Aikins. “The notion of things converging
in a positive sense, of getting past revenge, of
miracles and healing wells. “And,” he
adds with a smile, referring to Heaney’s strong
support of the AIF’s efforts “it’s
always nice to have a Nobel laureate from Ireland
on your side.” The campaign carried forward
the principal focuses and goals of the AIF in preceding
years. These were: to promote peace and
reconciliation in Northern Ireland, and to support community development, education,
arts, and culture throughout Ireland.
A context of change—and
challenge
The campaign began against the backdrop of the Good
Friday Agreement, reached in April 1998 and ratified
overwhelmingly in all parts of Ireland. For the first
time in many years, it seemed, there might be a chance
to build a true and lasting peace.
But as Senator
Maurice Hayes—Chairman of the Funds’ Advisory
Committee in Dublin—said at the time, “The
Agreement is not an end in itself. It must mean a
new beginning for everyone—particularly those
who have suffered most over the years from the effects
of violence.”
The campaign also began in the context of a second
new and welcome trend: the so-called “Celtic Tiger.” By the late 1990s, the Irish economy
was growing at record rates. For the first time in more than a century, immigrants
into Ireland exceeded emigrants away from the island. The sponsors of Hope & History
celebrated this progress—but also made the case that Ireland’s
new prosperity was not evenly distributed. More than one in five Irish, they
pointed out, still lived below the official poverty line. Much work remained
to be done.
Many of the initiatives embraced by Hope & History—like those supported
before and after the campaign by the AIF—straddled the issues of peace,
reconciliation, culture, community development, and education.
“This was the case we tried to make,” recalls Kingsley Aikins. “We
tried to underscore for people that, thanks to our extensive
network of advisors in the north and south of Ireland, we knew which levers
to pull to have the greatest impact.”
Another effective selling point of the campaign, according to Aikins, was the
concept of leverage. Donations to the AIF—the
proponents of Hope & History pointed out—tend to have important ripple
effects. Among other things, they tend to validate new
ideas, and prompt other entities to contribute to these causes.
A detour of the heart
Building on its sizeable nucleus fund, Hope & History made strong progress
in its first year or so. Then came the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, when
terrorists killed almost 3,000 people in an orchestrated series of attacks
on New York City and Washington. D.C.
Work on the AIF campaign—like most other pursuits—was suspended.
The grieving buried their dead. And then something quite extraordinary happened.
“In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy,” Aikins recalls, “we
got calls from people around the world, asking what we could collectively do
for the U.S. The unanimous sense was that Americans had been overwhelmingly generous
to the Irish in the past, and that the time had come to reciprocate.”In short order, The Ireland Funds had established their Disaster Relief Fund,
which donated $1 million for relief and rebuilding efforts in New York City. “A
small sum, given the scale of that disaster,” Aikins concludes, “but
an absolutely heartfelt one.”
Toward the finish line
In the spring of 2002, the campaign began to regain
its lost momentum. The New York dinner in May was
the single most successful event in AIF history,
raising some $3 million in one night, chaired by
Bob McCann and Christopher “Kip” Condron.
The AIF board took particular pride in this success—and
also in their own contribution to the rekindling
of Hope & History. Board contributed fully
66 % of the campaign total. It also restructured
itself in ways that advanced the cause of both
the AIF and its campaign.
And finally, Board Directors proved themselves
to be effective and articulate advocates for the
cause. At the annual June conference held in Dublin
but ranging
far and wide across Ireland, Board Directors hosted informational tours and
helped introduce prospective donors to the meticulous granting methods of the
Fund—helping persuade those donors to join the campaign. Irish members
of the Advisory Committee made it clear why the work of the Fund continues
to be of great importance.
As a result of these many contributions, the campaign again made steady progress
toward the finish line. As it entered its fifth and final year, only $13 million
of the original $100 million target remained to be raised. And in that final
year, that last gap was closed—and exceeded by half again as much, for
a grand total of more than $107 million.
Change—and
continuity
What is next for the AIF, in the wake of its remarkable
campaign
success? The answer is twofold: delivering on the
promise of the campaign, and looking to the future.
To some extent, that promise has already been delivered
upon.
In the past five years, the success of Hope & History has enabled the AIF
to make more than 2,200 grants to approximately 1,000 organizations. One of
the significant trends that surfaced during Hope & History was the emergence
of donor-advised funds. This parallels a trend in the larger philanthropic
community, whereby many donors in recent years have sought to create closer
ties to the objects of their philanthropy. In many ways the Funds were victims
of their own success, introducing donors to people and projects that they became
very attached to, and wanted to support further.
“The Fund created opportunities for us to visit places like Belfast and
Derry,” recalls Bill Walsh, who with his family made a $2 million gift
to the campaign, “so we could witness first-hand what was being accomplished,
and listen to the hopes and dreams of the leaders.” Ultimately, the Walshes
elected to support a Poetry corner in the name of Seamus Heaney at Queen’s
University Belfast, a chair in classical Greek studies at Trinity College in
Dublin, and Integrated Schools, as well as a series of other projects.
“It’s a trend”, says Kingsley Aikins, “that’s likely
to become more important in the future. We’re well positioned to take advantage
of it,” he explains, “in light of our strong ties into so many parts
of Ireland. And the hidden benefit is that it involves human capital in our work,
as well as funds for investment.”
Increasingly, The Ireland Funds are taking a lead role in shaping the future
of philanthropy in Ireland—and perhaps, by extension, the broader European
community. Playing a critical convening role in bringing together members of
the donor and advisor communities, The Funds are looking for ways to “grow” philanthropy
in Ireland and elsewhere.
Fundraising will continue, of course. The AIF has never had a significant endowment;
in the opinion of board leaders the time has come to start building a financial
reserve that will lend stability to the organization’s efforts over the
long run. Meanwhile, the organization will continue to seek unrestricted funds
to do the work it has always done, investing in Ireland’s future.
Author Jeffrey
L. Cruikshank, president of the Milton, Massachusetts-based
Cruikshank Company, visited Ireland
during the course of the Hope & History
campaign and wrote for various campaign-related publications. |
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