An interesting poll is taking place amongst American Express cardholders to see which of 25 deserving projects will receive a $1.5 million grant. The fund drive, called the “Members Project“, will award $2.5 million altogether to the top three polled projects and is expected to conclude 10 days from now.
One of the non-governmental organizations participating is the International Medical Corps, which, in this case, is devoted to “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children“.
The organization is aggressively marketing itself to blogs and social media sites, which, from a communications perspective, is the first time I have seen the NGOs foray into “new media” as part of an organized campaign. But what really struck me was how personal the outreach was.
Here’s the pitch:
Hi there, Jim
My organization, International Medical Corps, has the ability to save the lives of malnourished children around the world and we just received some very exciting news. We have been nominated to be one of the Top 25 in American Express’ Projects, “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.” Our project was chosen out of 1,190 projects and is now eligible to receive up to $1.5 million to help feed hungry children. Because your blog, Bearing Drift, has a loyal following, I thought this would be an issue you would want to share with your readers. I’ve put together this microsite explaining everything.
http://internationalmedicalcorps.smnr.us/If you could post about this on your blog it would really help to spread the message and potentially could save many lives. At the minimum, please vote for “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.”
I responded to the organization because I wanted to see if the pitch was “legit” and what they were hoping to accomplish through this marketing strategy.
“$1.5 million could feed and care for an awful lot of hungry children and the more people who are aware of it the better,” wrote a spokesperson for the IMC.
Indeed.
