{"id":2875,"date":"2011-06-27T11:49:46","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=2875"},"modified":"2011-06-27T11:49:46","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:49:46","slug":"save-the-children-ceo-defends-celebrity-endorsement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/27\/save-the-children-ceo-defends-celebrity-endorsement\/","title":{"rendered":"Save the Children CEO defends celebrity endorsement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the actor Angelina Jolie\u2019s high-profile visit to a Syrian refugee camp last week, the CEO of Save the Children, Justin Forsyth defends the power of celebrity endorsement in the third sector.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writing in the Observer yesterday, he argued that \u201cthe benefits of celebrity are not fabled but real \u2013 and can produce very concrete results.\u201d His adversary, the journalist Peter Stanford counters: \u201cWe may live in the celebrity age but to imagine that a big name will automatically open wallets and hearts is to underestimate our potential supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Do celebrities draw attention to deserving causes, or distract from them?<\/p><\/div>\n

The question of whether celebrities are a Midas-like influence on charities, helping to raise awareness and cash for good causes, or are in fact trivialising the very issues they claim to support is one that many charities have had cause to ask themselves.<\/p>\n

Save the Children has called on an impressive roster of famous supporters to back its campaigns, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, David Beckham, Mariella Frostrup and Simon Cowell.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course the celebrity touch isn\u2019t everything. Every charity \u2013 however big or small \u2013 needs to have a clear and convincing message about what it\u2019s trying to achieve,\u201d says Forsyth.<\/p>\n

Spreading the word<\/strong><\/p>\n

But, he claims, the involvement of a celebrity can help charities to spread the word among a broader range of people. \u201cStacey Soloman, a great mum, travelled to Malawi with us as part of our No Child Born to Die campaign, to highlight the plight of mums dying in childbirth. Her reach [as an X-Factor star], through the popular media is amazing. Through her experiences, the words of the mothers she met in Malawi were heard in the living rooms of millions of families across the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, this raises the issue, says Stanford, of why people should support the work of charities in the first place; \u201cbecause Bono and Stacey Soloman give it their imprimatur, or because these are crying injustices that scar our world and degrade our own humanity?\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue for Forsyth is one of reach; in culture fascinated with the cult of celebrity, words issued by a X-Factor singer or film star reach far more people than those articulated by charity executives, however, loudly they shout.<\/p>\n

The power of famous voices<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t believe we\u2019ll achieve the enormous change we need in the world \u2013 from saving children\u2019s lives to fighting for human rights \u2013 without the power of famous voices,\u201d says Forsyth. \u201cWe cant afford to be too cautious or too purist; the task is too urgent and too important.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you think? We\u2019ve talked about the potential benefits celebrity favour can bring before (here<\/a>), but what are your thoughts? Are celebrities themselves the hangers-on when it comes to charity, or do they make a valuable contribution to the causes they lend their name to? Get in touch via our Twitter feed<\/a> or\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the actor Angelina Jolie\u2019s high-profile visit to a Syrian refugee camp last week, the CEO of Save the Children, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[823,824,258,347],"class_list":["post-2875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-profit-organizations","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-celebrities","tag-malawi","tag-ngo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}