The ONE Campaign is a U.S.-based, nonpartisan, non-profit organization which aims to increase United States 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 late 2008, ONE announced it would be merging with the NGO DATA.

The organization has launched a campaign around the presidential election called ONE Vote '08, which is co-chaired by former senators Tom Daschle and Bill Frist.

Overview

ONE is a grassroots organization which attempts to mobilize supporters around its issues and organize them into a lobbying force, with the goal of encouraging America's elected national leaders to fund more U.S. 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.

In 2007, ONE Action launched "ONE Vote '08," a initiative to make global poverty a priority in the 2008 presidential election. As part of the ["On The Record" campaign]On The Record about page, ONE Vote '08 asked the candidates their plans for:

   * Reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis;
   * Eradicating malaria;
   * Improving child and maternal health;
   * Achieving universal primary education; and
   * Cutting in half the number of people without clean water or enough food.

The candidates' replies (on video and written) are on the [On The Record]On The Record microsite microsite.

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, 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, went 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, Sen. Tom Daschle (Democratic party) and Sen. Bill Frist (Republican party). 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] [10][11]} In addition, the ONE Vote initiative has produced official and unofficial endorsements from presidential candidates John Edwards and Bill Richardson.^[12][13]

In the fall of 2007, ONE launched the ["ONE Campus Challenge."]ONE Campus Challenge site in which college students at more than 1,300 campuses competed to do the most education and advocacy work for ONE. In January 2008, ONE will host a submit for representatives from the top 100 schools. Among the speakers at the summit will be Jenna Bush.

In 2008, ONE merged with the organization DATA. The two organizations are now run by CEO David Lane.

Methods

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,^[14] and uses Facebook for its campus organizing.^[15]

ONE also has field organizers around the country 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.^[16].

References

External links

• The ONE Campaign - Official site