Keeping the Party Purposeful

WITNESS is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based organization originally founded in 1992 as a project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). It spun off in 2001 to become an independent 501(c)3 organization. WITNESS provides support — in the form of video equipment and strategic training — to local groups across the globe to use video in their human-rights advocacy, and it facilitates exposure of global issues by brokering relationships with international media outlets, government officials, policymakers, activists and the general public to use video as a tool to advocate for change.

I met with Sara Federlein, development and special projects manager at WITNESS, at the AFP Greater New York Chapter’s Fund Raising Day in New York over the summer, and she talked with me about a special fundraising event at WITNESS.

FundRaising Success: What is your major source of funds?
Sara Federlein: It’s changing. It used to be primarily foundations — 70 [percent] to 80 percent — and about 10 percent individuals and 5 percent corporate. In our last fiscal year, it [changed] to 50 percent foundations, 20 percent individuals and less than 10 percent corporate. So, we’re diversifying our portfolio.

FS: Tell me about a successful fundraising effort that WITNESS has undertaken recently.
SF: Our annual “Focus for Change” gala is a huge success. For about five years we held an annual house party at the home of a board member, which was a very intimate event with A-list acoustic performers like Suzanne Vega, Phillip Glass and Rufus Wainwright. Our guests loved these events, but they never raised very much money — only around $20,000 to $30,000.

So, two years ago we decided to scale up and do our first major gala. First year out we netted $425,000, mainly from individuals and corporations. We had musical performances by Nile Rodgers and his band CHIC, and Emmylou Harris, and 425 guests at the Supper Club in Midtown Manhattan. Then last year we built on that success and netted $485,000 from 450 guests and a handful of corporate sponsors, surpassing our goals. That event was held at Hammerstein Ballroom.

FS: What do you think made the gala more successful than the former house parties?
SF: It was just a totally different animal. The house parties were very organic, and we could be more flexible in how we organized them. The annual gala takes far more planning and investment since it’s a major production. That said, our expenses are still pretty lean since all of the musical performances are donated. But organizing a sit-down dinner at a major New York venue with a professional concert is, of course, relatively expensive compared to what we had been doing.

FS: How do you balance the party atmosphere of a gala with your mission?
SF: I think that we’ve found a way to put on a professional event that raises a significant amount of income while still making our guests feel intimately connected to the work like we did before with the house parties.

Last year we focused on our ongoing work to put an end to the human-rights atrocities perpetrated by the military dictatorship controlling Burma. We had one of our partners from Burma Issues [a project of The Peace Way Foundation dedicated to empowering grassroots movements to lead the struggle for change in Burma] fly in from Thailand to talk about the campaign and also heard some incredible music. It’s a delicate balance to strike, but I think we’ve managed to do it pretty well.

FS: What fundraising challenges does WITNESS face?
SF: A big challenge is diversification, as I mentioned, and we’re making a lot of progress in that respect. I think another challenge — and this is not exclusive to WITNESS — is that in a way we’re the victim of our own success. The more money we raise, the more programs we start. And the more programs we have, the more staff we need. The more staff, the more funding, and so it becomes a cycle where we’re trying to keep up with ourselves institutionally.

So far we’ve been able to do it but [we] still need to give ourselves more space to reflect and allow our infrastructure to grow along with us. So, I guess you can say we’re at this exciting yet challenging tipping point with our growth.

FS: How has your work been influenced by Web 2.0 advancements?
SF: We’re about to launch a ground-breaking new project called The Hub, which some are calling the “YouTube for human rights.” It’ll be an online destination where anyone, anywhere in the world can upload or download footage [depicting] human rights [issues] to create change. It’ll open to the public this fall.

FS: What advice can you give to other organizations?
SF: I think one major reason for our success is our “open source” or nonproprietary approach to what we do. WITNESS was founded on the concept of collaboration, and we’re constantly striving to share our methodology and tools with as many human-rights and social-justice groups that could benefit from what we do.

We do this in so many ways — by making our new training book, called “Video for Change,” available for free on our Web site and publishing it in seven languages; by providing short-term training to hundreds of social-justice groups each year that we don’t have the capacity to serve in our more intensive Core Partner program; and by launching The Hub as a truly populist vehicle to advance human rights.

We realized early on that this work is not something that we can or should do in a vacuum, and we’re most effective when we capitalize on the strengths of our partners and allies … I know that in some ways we’re in competition for funding, but in other ways we can really reinforce each other’s work. That’s very much the spirit behind WITNESS.