Running

head: IIA CAMPAIGN

IIA Campaign
Kelsey Von Gunten
Kent State University

IIA CAMPAIGN

Introduction
The International Institute of Akron (IIA) is self- described as a non-profit agency
founded in 1916, which each year provides services to over 10,000 immigrants and resettles over
500 refugees in northeast Ohio (International Institute of Akron). IIA provides services to
immigrants such as courses in English, Financial Literacy, and American Etiquette. In addition,
as a resettlement agency IIA provides intensive assistance for the first three months after a
refugees arrival (International Institute of Akron). This intensive assistance includes the
services mentioned above; as well as airport pick-up, community introduction, housing
placement, employment services, mandated necessity items, and a small 90-day budget to subsist
on while acclimating and seeking employment. Fundraising for international refugees is
exceedingly difficult due to the misconception of the general population that refugees are the
same as illegal immigrants; therefore education and salience creation are both vital components
of my persuasive campaign. Due to the lack of funding IIA has, in addition to the lack of support
from the general population the agency does not receive sufficient resources to provide refugees
with all of their necessities upon arrival; therefore they must be provided through the tiny budget
refugees are allotted. This being the case, the goal for my campaign is to provide bedding to the
refugees whom are resettled by IIA. My campaign is designed to raise awareness on the issue of
international refugees in hopes that creating agent and topic knowledge among my audience will
in turn increase salience of the issue making them more susceptible to Emotional Appeals set to
persuade donations.

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Research Design
The goal of my campaign is to raise donations for an, unfortunately, very controversial
issue in the United States largely due to lack of education on the subject leading to
misunderstanding. That being the case my research methodology focused on compiling
information on the most successful persuasive techniques for controversial fundraising which
then lead me to pursue further research on the Persuasion Knowledge Model and educating
others on controversial issues, as well as using a quantitative analysis of donations as a measure
of my campaigns success.
The first portion of my research and therefore campaign design focuses on creating agent
and topic knowledge in hopes of raising salience and susceptibility to persuasive techniques
encouraging donation. I have chosen this because, according the Persuasion Knowledge Model
research has shown that Emotional Appeals have been some of the most persuasive techniques in
charitable campaigns, but clear knowledge and understanding of the charitable topic as well as
the organization (agent) plays a large in the success of said Emotional Appeals (Friestad &
Wright, 1994). In order to do this I will use multiple instruments to inform potential donors of
the work and credibility of IIA (agent), as well as on international refugees being sent to the
United States (topic).
The second portion of my research design focuses on the target audience choice in the
success of utilizing Emotional Appeals. Emotional Appeals, primarily Guilt Appeals, are used to
cut through the clutter of audiences by creating a target audience that will respond in a
beneficial way to the emotions raised in them (Hibbert et al. 2007). In a campaign with a cause
as controversial and misunderstood as international refugees, the target audience must be chosen

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very carefully. For these reasons I chose to target and approach students with a prior knowledge,
understanding, and interest in international affairs due to the fact that I felt they would be more
receptive to the topic I am attempting to present.
The third portion of my research design focuses on the utilization of quantitative data as a
measure of success. I felt that due to the clear-cut goal of my campaign, which is to build and
donate 10 beds with a sheet; pillow; comforter; and pillowcase, measuring the success of my
campaign through quantitative data seemed the most relevant.
Participants
The participants of my campaign primarily consist of certain groups chosen to be my
target audience for the research based aforementioned reasons, as well as advisors and
coordinators I have been in contact with to organize events and obtain accurate information on
IIA and the refugees.
The first group that was chosen as a portion of the make-up of my target audience was
American students with major focuses in International Relations, Languages, and Social
Sciences. I chose these students because I felt that their background and interests would tend to
make them more open minded toward the topic of raising support for international refugees in
the area. I approached these students interpersonally I also utilized my role as the French Club
President to present the issue, not only to my groups members but also by reaching out to
leaders of other internationally focused groups on campus giving them information on my cause.
I did this through small group announcements in club meetings and classes, as well as mediated
communication such as detailed e-mails and social networking. This group proved the most
receptive to my persuasive techniques of Emotional Appeals, especially when given the

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opportunity to clarify their misconceptions and misunderstandings with me directly. Just as I had
hypothesized based on the research I had done on the Persuasion Knowledge Model and
Emotional Appeals as persuasive techniques, these students were very open to learning about my
campaign topic and agent and as their understanding grew so did their salience and sympathy for
the topic, which in turn heavily increased their desire and motivation to donate. This group has
demonstrated a great example of what we know to be the definition of a campaign, which is a
series of interconnected events designed to bring about a specific result.
The second half of my target audience was made up of international students. I felt this
was an obvious choice for a group to approach. International students, though not in exactly the
same way, can relate to the feeling of struggling to adapt into a new culture. I felt this would
make them more receptive to the Emotional Appeals utilized to persuade donors for my
campaign. Though some of these students were approached through mediated forms of
communication as a part of other groups on campus I approached through e-mail, social
networking posts, and interpersonal contact with group leaders; my direct attempts at reaching
them was largely interpersonal. I felt talking to international students directly was the best way to
communicate my message with them, not only because this is the form of communication I feel
enables myself to be most persuasive but also, because it helps break through language and
culture barriers of communication in ways which mediated forms cannot. Although I did have a
great amount of empathy-based interest from the international students I approached, my donor
rates among this group were much lower than that of their American counterparts. In a way this
result somewhat surprised me, as I certainly think I expected empathy to play a much bigger role
as a motivator to donate however, in a way these results completely make sense. Studies have
demonstrated that when seeking charitable donations, due to the desire to fulfill needs of self

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before needs of others, empathy of a situation does not always result in favorable ways regarding
donor motivation (Block & Goodman, 1976).
The last of the groups of direct participants in my campaign were an advisor for a campus
organization I held an informational dinner with, and the outreach coordinator for IIA. Both of
these rather scatter-brained individuals were hard to effectively communicate with at first,
through research I decided to try and utilize the Hawthorn Effect with them. The Hawthorn
Effect states that participants behave more productively when more involved in the decision
making process (Block & Goodman,1976). This strategy worked exceedingly well with both the
LCM advisor and the IIA outreach coordinator. When I began posing most ideas and plans as a
question, and began asking for options, ideas, and input they became much better communicators
and much more interested in being involved.
Instruments
Scholarly research on approaches and theories for persuasion of charitable giving allowed
me to become acquainted with successful approaches and the reasons behind their success.
Understanding this allowed me to effectively customize them per individual need throughout my
campaign.
Presentations and mediated communication proved an effective and efficient way to
reach a large number of people most likely to be receptive to this topic area. The only problem I
had with the use of these communication techniques was I felt that as interest was being
generated it was much harder for me to adequately respond to the questions people had to help
them better understand the issue and the goal and therefore increase the level of salience and
donor motivation to its highest potential.

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I felt interpersonal communication was my best tool throughout this campaign. It allowed
me to relate to the potential donor I was addressing, as well as made it easy for me to fully
explain, clarify, and answer any questions they may have had. I felt this tool was exceptionally
useful when approaching those on the edge or outside my desired target audience. While
researching the use of Guilt Appeals in persuasive campaigns I learned that this is often the case
when attempting to find donors for a controversial topic, by enabling you to ask filter questions
to determine a persons level of experience and understanding with the topic and adjust your
approach accordingly or allow them to opt out if they are more likely to negatively respond
(Hibbert et al., 2007). In addition, I feel that my great success with using interpersonal
communication can also be attributed to where my personal strengths and weaknesses lie. I am
much more articulate and therefore, I believe, seem more knowledgeable and trustworthy when
presenting the topic and details of my campaign when I am faced with a small group or single
person whom I can converse with rather than when approaching a large group. I felt that this was
important to take into consideration as well when planning and executing campaign strategies
due to the research done which indicates that perceived sincerity of persuasive techniques in a
charitable giving campaign plays a large role in receptiveness to said techniques by your
audience (Waters, R. 2009).
Procedure and Timeline
Raising awareness, and advertising consistently proved to be my most challenging efforts by and
large throughout the campaign. Due to my first campaign idea being shot down by the director of
IIA after I had already begun work on it, I was not able to start truly raising awareness, and
advertising for this campaign topic until September 29th; which was obviously a bit of a set back.
I utilized quite a few instruments, as detailed above in order to do this. The general lack of

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understanding and salience also made this the most important part of my campaignas we
know, a campaign is defined as series of interconnected events designed to bring about a
particular result. This definition merely supports the notion that before you can get people to
do, you must first get them to care. I felt that as far as raising awareness on agent and topic and
therefore salience is concerned, interpersonal communication was definitely my most useful and
effective tool; for all of the reasons I have previously mentioned. Not only did interpersonal
communication allow me to best generate donor interest in giving, it was also the only tool that
generated interest in people whom wanted to gain a greater understanding from the topic in order
to present the issue to larger audiences through newspaper articles and events. When approached
by people with inquiries of this nature while raising awareness I felt more accomplished than any
other time in the campaign; this is due to my strong desire to have the overall effect of my
campaign be raising awareness because even though I chose quantitative data of donations, in
order for my campaign to continue bringing in donations after its conclusion awareness of the
general population is absolutely vital. In regards to advertising for specific events however, I felt
that communicative approaches via social media and e-mail proved most effective. This is
because these techniques allowed me to most efficiently communicate events to the large groups
I have generated interest in through prior interpersonal tactics.
The first of the two events held in my campaign was one which I entitled crochet for the
cause, in which I invited people to come and learn to crochet by helping to make blankets for the
refugees. This event had two dates, November 5th and 12th. While neither of these events turned
out quite the attendance rate I had hoped for (as one could expect when hosting an event at the
end of the semester), they were certainly successful. I feel that despite lower than ideal

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attendance rates this event was successful because all supplies were utilized and the goal number
of blankets, being 10, was reached.
The second event I hosted for my campaign was an informational dinner in collaboration
with Kent States chapter of Lutheran Campus Ministries. This organization has weekly dinners
for its members, they were kind enough to team up with me on November 7th and do a dinner
with a theme geared toward the refugees. At this dinner I gave informative talks in small groups
and brought visual tactics. My goal of this dinner was to raise enough monetary donations to
purchase 10 new pillows, one for each of the bedding packages I hoped to donate to the refuges,
as this was the only item that was required to be new; I successfully reached this goal. Beyond
that in the weeks following several individuals approached me from this event with goods of
pillowcases, blankets, and sheets they wanted to donate as well.
Limitations
My original campaign plan had quite a different goal of raising bikes for the refugees to
supply them with a form of transportation. This campaign seemed like it had great potential for
success, and generated plenty of interest from potential donors. However, while the outreach
coordinator I work with directly thought this was a great idea upon proposal and gave me the
okay to get started, late veto of this proposal by the director of IIA caused me to have to redesign
and restart my entire campaign about three weeks in. This obviously caused somewhat of a time
crunch for my campaign, however it thankfully did not impede on my success.
The other major issues I was presented with throughout this campaign were a consistent
general misunderstand of international refugees and lack of salience on the issues they face as I
have previously mentioned and addressed various other times throughout this paper. While this

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topic certainly has a long way to go before being accepted by the general public, by and large I
feel I was able to overcome this obstacle and yield a successful execution of my campaign.
Results
My results were certainly positive, as I was able to achieve my quantitative goals for my
campaign of creating 10 bedding packages for the refugees. Not only did I meet my goal, in a
way I exceeded it. While I was not able to collect enough monetary or good donations to exceed
my goal of 10 complete bed packages I was able to donate upwards of 20 blankets. Additionally,
although I did not include awareness raised as a criteria for determining the success of my
campaign it was certainly an important goal as well, and I feel that in those attempts I was
successful as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The Persuasion Knowledge Model, Hawthorn Effect, and Emotional Appeals
certainly proved to be the most valuable approaches I had throughout this campaign; and the
execution of these tactics via interpersonal efforts with additional supports through mediated
forms of communication was successful as well. While I certainly faced many obstacles
throughout the research and execution of this campaign, I feel I was successful in my attempts to
raise awareness and donations for the refugees of IIA. Although this subject area has a long way
to go before being accepted and understood by Americas general population; I am glad I could
have a hand in helping that process along in our local community. I also plan to continue on with
my attempts at raising awareness for this very controversial issue.

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References
About Us. (N.D.) International Institute of Akron Website. Retrieved from IIAkron.org/about-us2/
Berger, P. D. & Smith, G.E. (1995). The impact of framing, anchorpoints, and frames of
reference on direct mail char contributions. Advances in Consumer Research, 22, 705712.
Block, R., J. & Goodman, N. (1976). Why Companies Give: Appeals to Self-Interest Worked
Better than those True to Altruism. Journal of Advertising Research, 16, 59-63.
Chang, C. & Lee, Y. (2010) Effects of message framing, vividness congruency and statistical
framing on responses to charity advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 29,
195-220.
Das, E., Kerkhof, P., Kuiper, J. (2008). Improving the Effectiveness of Fundraising Messages:
The Impact of Charity Goal Attainment, Message Framing, and Evidence on Persuasion.
Journal of Applied Communication Research, 36, 161-175.
Edwards, H. H. (2006). A rhetorical typology for studying the audience role in public
relations communication: the Avon 3-day disruption as exemplar. Journal of Communication,
56, 836-860. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00322
Elnolf, C. J. (2012). Is cognitive empathy more important than affective empathy? A response to
'who helps natural-disaster victims?. Analyses of Social Issues & Public Policy,12, 268271. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2012.01281

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References
Friestad, M. & Wright, P. (1994). The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with
Persuasion Attempts. Journal of Consumer Research, 21, 1-31.
Hibbert, S., Smith, A., Davies, A. & Ireland, F. (2007). Guilt Appeals: Persuasion Knowledge
and Charitable Giving. Psychology and Marketing, 28, 723-742. Doi: 10.1002/mar.20181
Resettlement Agency. (N.D.). In US Legal Definitions. Retrieved from
definitions.us.legal.com/r/resettlement-agency/
Waters, Richard D. (2009). The Importance of Understanding Donor Preference and
Relationship Cultivation Strategies. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 21,
327-346.