Heifer International takes on its biggest project to date — an $800 million campaign to alleviate hunger and educate the world.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Heifer closed FY 2003 with $1.44 million coming from major gifts; at the end of FY 2004, that number had increased some 50 percent to $2.16 million.

Still, most of Heifer’s donations come in from individuals who use the organization’s offline and online catalogs to “purchase” animals in the names of friends and family members. The animals then are given to families in needy communities around the world, along with education on how to care for them and use them to enhance the family’s quality of life. In turn, the receiving family agrees to give the first female offspring to another family in the community — “passing on the gift,” as Heifer calls it.