- ONE Campaign
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ONE Campaign 
Motto The Campaign to Make Poverty History Formation May 16, 2004 Type Development Advocacy Headquarters Washington, D.C. Location United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, South Africa, Nigeria Membership 2.4 million Official languages English Key people Bono (co-founder, spokesperson) Website ONE.org The ONE Campaign is an international, nonpartisan, non-profit organization which aims to increase government funding for and effectiveness of international aid programs.
ONE was originally founded by a coalition of 11 non-profit humanitarian and advocacy organizations — including DATA, World Vision, Oxfam America, and Bread for the World — with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2007, ONE announced that it would be merging with DATA.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential election the organization launched a campaign, called ONE Vote '08, which was co-chaired by former U.S. Senate majority leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Bill Frist (R-TN). The campaign is named after the song "One" by rock band U2, of which the campaign's co-founder Bono is a member.
Contents
Overview
ONE is an organization which attempts to mobilize supporters around its issues and organize them into a lobbying force, with the goal of encouraging national leaders to fund more international development and relief programs. As a campaign to fight extreme poverty and global diseases, it supports the Millennium Development Goals.
Although its central talking points center on ending extreme poverty and fighting the AIDS pandemic, ONE supports a broad variety of international development and relief issues, including debt relief, clean water, increasing the quantity and efficiency of aid, lessening corruption in the governments of the aid-recipient countries, providing basic education for all, making trade more fair, reforming the farm bill to make it more fair for farmers in developing countries, slowing deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, and increasing the international affairs budget. ONE holds the position that increasing foreign development assistance will create a more secure world, believing that global poverty and the ideological extremism that fuels terrorism are linked.[citation needed]
History
ONE was founded by 11 organizations: Bread for the World, CARE, DATA, International Medical Corps, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Plan USA, Save the Children U.S., World Concern, World Vision.
The official launch rally was held on May 16, 2004 at Liberty Mall in Philadelphia. About 2,000 people attended, including Bono, Dikembe Mutombo, Michael W. Smith, Richard Stearns (President of World Vision), and David Beckmann (President of Bread for the World).[1]
In December 2004, ONE announced a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[2] Corresponding with this announcement, Mark McKinnon, an adviser to President Bush, and Mike McCurry, an adviser to the Kerry Campaign, appeared on CNN's Inside Politics with Judy Woodruff in support of ONE.[3]
On May 22, 2007 the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria announced that it had saved 1.8 million lives since 2002, including a roughly doubling of services in the past year. ONE members had advocated for the increases to the Global Fund in both 2006 and 2007.[4]
In June 2007, ONE launched ONE Vote '08.[5] to mobilize American voters to engage the presidential candidates about the issues of global diseases and poverty. ONE Vote '08 seeks to have all the candidates make the fight against global poverty a key part of their national security and foreign policy platform. ONE Vote '08 is co-chaired by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Bill Frist (R-TN). Since the launch, state-wide initiatives have been established in each of the four early primary states—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.[6][7][8][9] In addition, the ONE Vote initiative has produced official and unofficial endorsements from presidential candidates John Edwards and Bill Richardson.[10][11]
In 2008, ONE merged with DATA. The two organizations are now run by CEO David Lane.[12]
The ONE Campaign is a member of the Global Coalition Against Pneumonia and supports World Pneumonia Day on November 2, 2009.
Methods
Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaking about ONE in a prerecorded video shown before a U2 performance of "One" during the group's U2 360° Tour in 2009.
An invitation to join ONE, shown at the end of the same show.ONE uses a number of highly visible methods to reach out to the general public, promote its message, encourage action and raise funds.
Celebrity spokespeople are used to speak to the media and undertake trips abroad televised visits to areas suffering from poverty in order to illustrate the issues ONE is attempting to solve. ONE also uses its celebrity supporters for video ads which are released on YouTube.
ONE is a largely Internet-based campaign and therefore has multiple online communities throughout cyberspace. As well as using YouTube, ONE has a significant presence on MySpace, Yahoo! Groups, and Flickr,[13] and uses Facebook for its campus organizing.[14]
ONE also has field organizers around the United States to support grassroots mobilization and advocacy. The field staff works with more than 200 local ONE groups that sponsor educational events, organize community awareness events, and lobby their Members of Congress.
Supporters are encouraged to sign ONE's declaration, encourage their family, friends and community to join and lobby their political representatives.[15]
Controversy
ONE has been criticized[16] for its response to a book by African economist Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa,[17] which was published in January 2009. Moyo accused ONE of mischaracterizing her views. She says that she is against only government aid, not "their kind of aid".[18] However, ONE argues that governmental development assistance "plays a critical role in the fight against extreme poverty and disease."[19] In June 2009 Dambisa Moyo told former U.S. presidential Republican speech writer Peter Robinson during a Hoover Institute sponsored Uncommon Knowledge interview that "the harshest thing that has happened [in terms of responses to her 2009 book Dead Aid], Bono's and Bob Geldof's organization, called One, who I had tried to have a number of meetings with before the book came out, about what the theses of the book were, launched a very vitriolic attack against me. To the point that they were calling organizations ahead of my meetings and media appointments and sent a letter to African NGO's claiming, basically, painting me as a genocidal maniac trying to kill African babies. In other words, trying to get Africans to be against me. To me, that was not really fostering dialogue."[20]
In September 2010, it was reported that the foundation used only 1.2% of their donations for charitable causes, and that the majority went on salaries.[21]
References
- ^ saworship.com
- ^ ONE Campaign Announces National Effort To Mobilize Americans in Support of Helping Fight Global AIDS and Poverty." The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
- ^ transcripts.com
- ^ "Global Fund Saves 1.8 Million Lives". Christiantoday.com. 2007-05-24. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/global.fund.saves.18.million.lives/10886.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ ONE Campaign Jumps Into 2008 Politics
- ^ "Iowa Caucus: Iowa Caucus – History, Candidate Profiles, Campaign Events and Caucus News". Gazetteonline.com. 2009-08-03. http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070628/IOWACAUCUS/70628006. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ One Vote '08 opens New Hampshire office - Boston.com[dead link]
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "Elko Daily Free Press". Elkodaily.com. 2007-07-03. http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2007/07/04/news/local_news/news1.txt. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ "John Edwards for President-Edwards Praises ONE Vote '08's Effort To Fight Global Poverty". Johnedwards.com. 2007-06-11. http://johnedwards.com/news/headlines/20070611-vote-08/. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ "Bill Richardson: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson Praises ONE Campaign | All American Patriots". All American Patriots<!. 2007-07-12. http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48726965_bill_richardson_bill_richardson_new_mexico_governor_bill_richardson_praises_one_campaign. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ ONE Campaign and DATA to Merge Press release from Data.org, October 27, 2007.
- ^ Will the 2008 USA election be won on Facebook? CNN.com, May 29, 2007. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
- ^ Facebook and MySpace The ONE website. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
- ^ Ten ways to contribute to ONE, the ONE Campaign website. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
- ^ "Dead Aid, Live Debate by Kevin Williamson on National Review Online". Article.nationalreview.com. 2009-04-13. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjljYTdmOTM0ZjY1Y2Q2MWMzOWZlNDY4MTIwOTc2YTg. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ "Dead Aid - Dambisa Moyo - Penguin Books". Penguin.co.uk. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846140068,00.html. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ "Bono, Beware: Dambisa Moyo on Aid, Microfinance, and the Problem of Celebs in Africa | The Inquisition | Fast Company". Fast Company<!. 2009-04-01. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/jeff-chu/inquisition/bono-beware-dambisa-moyo-aid-microfinance-and-problem-celebs-africa. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ "Development Assistance". ONE. http://www.one.org/c/us/issue/11/. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ "Africa with Dambisa Moyo". Peter Robinson. Hoover Institute. June 12, 2009. Timestamp: 33:35-34:15.
- ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314543/Bonos-ONE-foundation-giving-tiny-percentage-funds-charity.html
External links
Categories:- Make Poverty History
- Poverty
- Humanitarian aid organizations
- AIDS activism
- Development charities
- Organizations founded by Bono
- Organizations established in 2004
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