FILM, MUSIC AND LITERARY TALENTS UNITE TO SPEARHEAD ‘LISTEN’, AN ANNUAL GLOBAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN FOR THE WORLD’S MOST DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN.

Eight leading film stars join campaign to help the world’s most disadvantaged children.

Campaign to raise funds for 200 children’s charity projects worldwide helping 400,000 children each year.

$100m fundraising target in first year and $1bn over 10 years.

Campaign making 500 million people aware of children’s plight each year.

Developing a donor community of tens of millions helping children.

2 Legendary Music Directors announced for spectacular global broadcast event in Los Angeles, June 2008 featuring major stars collaborating to perform new versions of classic hit songs.

Acclaimed authors donate short stories to the Campaign.

Tony Hollingsworth,  Executive Producer  of the Listen Campaign,  announced the launch of the “Listen  Campaign 1”.

Outlining the project’s aims, Hollingsworth stated: “Listen is an annual, global media campaign bringing together some of the finest creative artists in film, music and the arts to raise awareness and funds for 200 children’s charity projects around the world and to develop a worldwide community of supporters”. Fundraising broadcasts in 60 countries are projected to generate $100m in Listen’s first year and $1bn over the first 10 years of the project.

Film stars including Natalie Portman, Goldie Hawn and Samuel L Jackson have already begun visits to children’s charity projects in India, Egypt, Peru, the US and Uganda, being filmed listening to children’s stories. A powerful Introductory Video and six short “webisodes” of the star visits are available online. These unique stories will be collected in the first of two primetime specials entitled “Why Listen”.

Six acclaimed authors – including African Nobel Prize Winner Professor Wole Soyinka and Ishmael Beah, author of New York Times’ bestseller “A Long Way Gone” – are donating short stories to Listen to be featured in newspapers and magazines around the world as the campaign unfolds.

The culmination of the Listen Campaign is “Listen Live” – a spectacular global broadcast event staged in Los Angeles, which will see major music stars collaborating to perform one-off covers of some of the world’s best known classic hits for a worldwide TV audience. Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame and legendary producer Don Was (Stones, Melissa Etheridge) have already signed up as the first two of five Music Directors for the event. Listen Live will be presented by film stars and international dignitaries who are taking part in the Listen Campaign.

Developed by Tribute over the last seven years with an investment of $10m, The Listen Campaign has been carefully designed as an annual campaign that will work across TV, radio, web, print and mobile, reaching a global audience of over 500 million in 60 countries each year. The Listen Campaign’s key message is for people to listen to the rights and needs of the world’s most disadvantaged children. Each annual campaign will consist of twenty major news items leading up to the global broadcast event, available through news channels, web channels, the morning shows of the world and the press.

Listen provides a media platform upon which creative artists from all disciplines can use their talents to bring the stories of disadvantaged children to the world. The public will be provided with a wealth of music, art, stories, and films, as well as the down to earth stories of children living with Poverty, Disease, Natural Disaster, Exploitation, War and Aids.  The whole of the campaign is being funded by sponsors and the sale of tickets and rights leaving the public’s donations free to go directly to The Listen Charity. 

Over seventy of the world’s most highly respected charities have nominated the 200 children’s projects that will benefit from Listen’s fundraising. Listen’s fundraising model is unique, based on grass roots research with donors in many countries. In order that the public knows exactly where its donations will be used, every one of the 200 beneficiary projects will be pre-declared before the public are asked to donate (over 190 are already listed online). Additionally, Listen guarantees that 100% of donations will go directly to the Listen Charity, with none going to fund the media campaign or broadcast event. Once collected, a minimum of 90% of what leaves the public’s pockets will reach the pre-declared projects in the field. Uniquely, each and every donor will receive five feedback reports over two years on exactly how their money is being used to change children’s lives on the ground.

“Pre-declaring the projects that will be funded and then reporting back on the effect of the donors’ money is a key difference of The Listen Campaign to other major international fundraising campaigns,” Hollingsworth continued. “This pre-declaration and impact reporting will build public trust and the creative artists’ contributions will generate interest leading to a sustained community of supporters”. The Listen Charity is registered in the UK, charity number 1079446.

Creative artists supporting The Listen Campaign already include:

Film: Natalie Portman, Samuel L Jackson, Ashley Judd, Ben Kingsley, Jessica Lange, Brooke Shields, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn.  Literature: Professor Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Ishmael Beah (Sierra Leone), Patricia Melo (Brazil), Tim Lott (UK), Xiaolu Guo (China), Marina Lewycka (UK).  Music Directors: Dave Stewart, Don Was.

(Stills available of all above – EPK available on the work of Film stars and music directors).

Tribute CEO Tony Hollingsworth has produced nine of the world’s largest global broadcast events which have reached a collective audience of billions and supported many worthy campaigns and causes. These include “Nelson Mandela: 70th Birthday Tribute,” “The Wall: Live in Berlin,” “Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa,” and “The Simple Truth: A Concert for Kurdish Refugees.”  The “Nelson Mandela: 70th Birthday Tribute” was seen by 600 million people in 67 countries.

www.tonyhollingsworth.com

www.tribute3ml.com