Building Houses of Hope in Haiti

Organization Name:
The Fuller Center for Housing
City & State:
Describe your creative piece – what is it and what has it been used for, and why is it innovative?
In the minutes, days and months after the earthquake in Haiti, The Fuller Center pulled together as a staff to make every effort to use our skills and resources--mostly in the area of poverty housing--to help rebuild Haiti. We knew our mission aligned perfectly with the need there and the next step was to ask the public to help us. Partnering with a home manufacturer, we found that we could build homes in Haiti for just $3,000 each. This poster was critical in drawing attention to that goal--specifically to churches. Many chose to sponsor not just one home, but five or ten. In-Design allowed innovation, having control over the content and size of the poster. We envisioned that once a church member slipped the brightly-colored poster out of the irresistible tube we mailed them in, they would be drawn in to the sad eyes of the Haitian child who represents the despair there, but also wouldn't miss the mission of hope embedded around the photo and finally, the encouragement to help.
What issue or problem were you working to address with this piece?
Since Jan. 12, the issues surrounding housing in Haiti have been in the forefront of news coverage and water cooler discussions across the world. The Fuller Center exists to eliminate poverty housing worldwide. These are issues that we know, live and breathe. Our normal model for partnering with low-income families involves an interest-free loan that future homeowners pay back on a monthly basis. But in a country where 60% are unemployed, we chose a different kind of action. We'll use our Greater Blessing program where a monthly amount is decided upon with a partnering family based on their financial need, and they are asked to donate that to The Fuller Center in order to "pay-it-forward" and help another family in need. But they do not enter a legally-binding agreement. Families in Haiti will provide labor for their homes. Our message is that Haiti needs a hand up, not a hand-out in rebuilding so that they might move toward self-sufficiency.
How has your submission successfully impacted your organization’s ability to solve this issue/problem?
We built on our experience with poverty housing abroad and the success that direct mail has been to us in the past (much of our donor base is in the 50-70 demographic) and combined it with the growing trends in fund-raising that involve less text, more graphics, large images and slick design. In addition within the limited copy we did use, we made sure to drive viewers to our Web site, where there is a wealth of information and techniques to engage and inspire--including video and more graphics! In this way we collected donations from churches and we provided a bridge for our donors to new online communication tools that will help them stay involved and work with us to rebuild Haiti. We also engaged a new audience, targeting a younger generation of donors. With donors and donations we can begin to build homes (hopefully in June) and take the steps necessary to bring a bit of hope to Haiti--in the form of housing.
Creative Submission - Files