Keep a Child Alive’s (KCA) co-founders Leigh Blake and Alicia Keys proudly announced today that the DIGITAL DEATH campaign has reached its anticipated goal of $1 million. The public as well as the artists who participated in the campaign donated to raise half a million dollars in less than one week and today pharma billionaire and noted philanthropist Stewart Rahr has generously offered to match this amount. The campaign launched on Wednesday, December 1st, World AIDS Day, as part of KCA’s larger fundraising effort BUY LIFE which was developed by advertising agency TBWAChiatDay New York.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of the fans, friends and artists who stood together for this cause and saved real lives,” said Keys. “I am humbled by the outpour of support from everyone.”
Starting today, all participating artists including Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Khloe Kardashian, Lenny Kravitz, Jay Sean, Swizz Beatz, Serena Williams, The Buried Life, Elijah Wood, Janelle Monae, Nikki Sixx, Kimberly Cole, David LaChapelle, Daphne Guinness and Bronson Pelletier will return online now that their digital lives have been bought back and the intended goal of $1 million has been collectively raised for KCA.
Rahr, who started with a single pharmacy in Brooklyn, recently sold his New York-based pharmaceutical distribution empire for a record amount and is now focusing on his philanthropy efforts, giving back to those in need with a particular focus on helping children. He first learned of KCA after attending the Black Ball in 2010 where he witnessed Alicia and Leigh’s passion which drove him to learn more about the organization and pledge his support.
“Although we never expected to raise $1 million overnight, we are completely blown away that we were able to achieve our goal in less than a week. We are moved by the many generous donations and by the amount of support we’ve received from the public,” said Blake. “Over 3,600 people have joined the fight and sacrificed their own digital lives for this important cause and we intend to continue this movement.”
The public is still able to donate and sacrifice their own digital lives at www.buylife.org, where they can upload a photo and ask friends and colleagues to buy back their lives to support Keep a Child Alive.
DIGITAL DEATH follows on the heels of BUY LIFE, a technologically advanced marketing campaign that launched on October 1st following the seventh annual Black Ball in NY. BUY LIFE featured Katie Holmes, Usher, Jay Sean, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Alicia Keys, Jaden and Willow Smith, Serena Williams, Swizz Beatz and others in ads wearing t-shirts with scan-able bar codes, which smart phone users could use to donate to KCA. Both campaigns were developed by KCA’s advertising agency TBWAChiatDay New York with photography by Markus Klinko and Indrani and styling by GK Reid.
ABOUT KEEP A CHILD ALIVE
Keep a Child Alive provides first class AIDS care, support, nutrition, education and love to children and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India. With 30 million already dead, the disease continues to wipe out whole societies, threatening economic infrastructure and devastating the family structure. There are currently 14.9 million AIDS orphans in Africa alone. Anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment has transformed the lives of people with AIDS in the West, returning them to health from illness. However, millions of people with AIDS have no access to these lifesaving drugs. KCA currently provides funding to 10 clinical and orphan care sites in 5 countries: Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and India; with previous projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Zimbabwe and South Africa that have been successfully scaled to new levels of service and self-sustainability within their communities.
Keep a Child Alive is committed to engaging the global public in the fight against AIDS and is proud to be a pioneer in fundraising. KCA was the first charity to ask the public to donate directly to purchase AIDS treatment and the first to make an online documentary “Alicia in Africa” available for free download. Keep a Child Alive also pioneered text messaging as a means to donate using our innovative Text ALIVE campaign to inspire whole new audiences to support our work. Keep a Child Alive was the first charity to successfully implement a text-message donation campaign in the United States, launching Text “ALIVE” in conjunction with the “As I Am” concert tour of our Co-Founder, Alicia Keys in 2008. To date, KCA has raised over $800,000 from one-time $5 donations through texting. Keep a Child Alive’s latest campaign, BUY LIFE, uses the smart-phone applications Wimo/Stickybits to scan bar-code technology to donate directly to KCA. We are the first to use this bar-code technology for philanthropic purposes.
Since founded in 2003, Keep a Child Alive has raised $27 million to fund the sites we support and to educate the public about the AIDS pandemic.