U2 fans donate over $34,000 to mark Bono’s birthday
Howard Lake | 8 July 2007 | News
The African Well Fund’s 5th Annual “Build a Well for Bono’s Birthday” fundraising campaign has raised over $34,000. All proceeds of the campaign to mark the U2 singer’s birthday will go to African Well Fund partner Africare to fund clean water projects throughout the continent.
This is the fifth year in a row that U2 fans from around the world have celebrated Bono’s birthday on 10 May raising money for clean water in Africa. This year’s campaign was launched on 22 March, World Water Day, and run until 15 May. The five annual birthday campaigns have raised more than $100,000 to fund clean water projects in Africa.
Fundraising activities this year included an Ebay photo auction of donated U2 concert photos which raised more than $7,000, and sales of a U2 fan project, The Little Red Book of Poe-ee-tree, a collection of poems and short stories written by U2 fans around the world.
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After donating online, fans signed an online birthday card for Bono at the African Well Fund web site. Their signatures and birthday greetings were incorporated into a hand-made card that was sent to Bono in Dublin.
Bono has been engaged in activism on behalf of Africa for many years. In 2002, he co-founded DATA (debt, AIDS, trade, Africa) to raise public awareness of the issues in its name, and influence government policy on Africa, and has lobbied the heads of many G8 nations.
Other celebrities’ birthdays have also benefited charities. Fans of Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe have marked his birthday by raising funds for the National Autistic Society. Does one of your charity’s celebrity supporters have an active fan-base that could be persuaded to mark their birthday in this way to benefit your charity?
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.