While researching the term "poster child" for Fair Trade Recycling's report on Ghana (agonizingly close to completion... footnotes, footnotes!) I ran across some interesting articles on the March of Dimes - the anti polio campaign of the 1940s and 50s.
Wikipedia's article on the March of Dimes had a series of photos on the role of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the founding of a "National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (1938)". The campaign's use of photos of children in wheelchairs was effectively a merger of photojournalism and a public health campaign. In the beginning, American children were asked to each donate a ten cents, and the "March of Dimes" campaign was so successful (if not in raising money from children, for leveraging federal and charitable donations) that it became a model for the charity or non-profit sector.
Bringing poignant images to stir emotional, nurturing responses from donors earned a label of "poster child campaign". The term didn't really have any negative connotation until the 1960s. As I recall from my MBA courses in non-profit management at Boston University (but don't have time to track down), it was a study on "diminishing returns" of a Unicef campaign that resulted in treating photo fundraising more cautiously. We were taught, as MBA students, that there's a moral dilemma in using photos to raise funds for one non-profit cause if the campaign taxes the empathy of donors.
Celebrities and sad-eyed-children-photography make a powerful weapon. But it isn't science. And the worst kind of collateral damage is being waged via environmental malpractice. Today's blog is about how I don't become cynical, even in the face of rigged bids and shaming attacks on my character. My heroes stay fresher longer.
Wikipedia's article on the March of Dimes had a series of photos on the role of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the founding of a "National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (1938)". The campaign's use of photos of children in wheelchairs was effectively a merger of photojournalism and a public health campaign. In the beginning, American children were asked to each donate a ten cents, and the "March of Dimes" campaign was so successful (if not in raising money from children, for leveraging federal and charitable donations) that it became a model for the charity or non-profit sector.
Bringing poignant images to stir emotional, nurturing responses from donors earned a label of "poster child campaign". The term didn't really have any negative connotation until the 1960s. As I recall from my MBA courses in non-profit management at Boston University (but don't have time to track down), it was a study on "diminishing returns" of a Unicef campaign that resulted in treating photo fundraising more cautiously. We were taught, as MBA students, that there's a moral dilemma in using photos to raise funds for one non-profit cause if the campaign taxes the empathy of donors.
Celebrities and sad-eyed-children-photography make a powerful weapon. But it isn't science. And the worst kind of collateral damage is being waged via environmental malpractice. Today's blog is about how I don't become cynical, even in the face of rigged bids and shaming attacks on my character. My heroes stay fresher longer.
