THE WORLDWIDE Ireland Funds charitable network yesterday announced a “Promising Ireland” campaign to raise $100 million for Irish causes by the end of 2013.
The title of the campaign is intended to express concern for Ireland but also confidence in its future, said Kieran McLoughlin, president and chief executive of the funds.
The $100 million is “a bold and ambitious target”, he added. “But we have to do everything we can to support and help not-for-profit groups that are going to do so much to keep the fabric of society sound.”
The campaign represents an intensification of the funds’ activities rather than a shift in priorities. “The big change will be how much we generate, how much we can raise,” Mr McLoughlin said.
A “quiet phase” of the effort began in 2009. “One goes to friends and family for the low-hanging fruit – your closest donors – to establish the bedrock of the funding requirement,” Mr McLoughlin said.
“Once that’s been achieved, one launches the public phase and invites a broader audience to participate.”
Giving for Ireland has increased exponentially. In 2008, the funds distributed about $6 million in grant aid. That expanded to $20 million a year in 2009 and 2010. “If we keep that momentum up, we’ll achieve the target of $100 million by the end of 2013. We’re spending down the money at the same time we raise it,” Mr McLoughlin said.
Ireland Funds was founded by businessman Tony O’Reilly and the present US ambassador to Ireland, Dan Rooney, in 1976 and raised $350 million in its first three decades. In addition to culture, education and North-South dialogue, it focuses on disadvantaged youth and the elderly. Among the programmes funded this year are the Abbey School, which provides scholarships for poor children in Tipperary; An Cosán, which runs a drop-in and support centre for women in difficulties in Tallaght, and Barretstown Camp for children with terminal illnesses.
The Belvedere youth club in Dublin holds cookery classes “to ensure these kids get a square hot meal on a daily basis”, Mr McLoughlin said. Sunshine Home is building Ireland’s first hospice for dying children. Jack and Jill children’s foundation provides 50 nurses across Ireland for severely handicapped infants.
Mr McLoughlin referred to Carl O’Brien’s recent “shocking and distressing” series, published in this newspaper, about suicide in Ireland. “This is a very modern problem which is exacerbated by the recession,” he said. The funds have given more than $1 million to mental health charities such as Console, the Samaritans and Aware.
Ireland Funds exist in 12 countries on four continents and invite 40,000 people to 100 fundraising events each year. The lion’s share – some 85 to 90 per cent – comes from the US “because the spirit and the culture of philanthropy is so embedded in American culture”, Mr McLoughlin said. “The majority of our large gifts come from individual philanthropists: Irish-Americans who are very concerned with the wellbeing of Ireland.”