Save the world? Celebrities to the rescue

An entire industry has sprung up around the recruitment of celebrities to good works. Even an old-line philanthropy like the Red Cross employs a “director of celebrity outreach.” Oxfam has a celebrity wrangler in Los Angeles, Lyndsay Cruz, on the lookout for stars who can raise the charity’s profile with younger people. In addition to established figures like Colin Firth and Helen Mirren, Oxfam is affiliated with Scarlett Johansson, who has visited South Asia (where the organization promotes girls’ education) and is scheduled to go to Mali. Cruz notes that while “trendy young people” are attracted to the star of “Match Point” and “Lost in Translation,” Johansson had “great credibility with an older audience because she’s such a great actress.”

The stars themselves have their own retainers to fend off the celebrity recruiters and to screen and sift charitable opportunities; publicists say their major clients get dozens of requests every week. The more deeply committed figures, like Angelina Jolie, retain firms like the Global Philanthropy Group, which, according to a representative, offers “comprehensive philanthropic management.” This includes establishing and staffing foundations, bringing in subject-area experts or even helping the novice philanthropist figure out what he or she actually wants to do. A similar organization, the Giving Back Fund, works with athletes like the quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the basketball players Jalen Rose and Shane Battier.

Both the stars and the causes, in turn, depend on corporate sponsorship. It is the sponsors who pay for the galas at which the stars raise money for their causes; sponsors normally pay for the stars’ first-class air tickets and hotel suites. Corporations need causes as much as stars do. Like the stars, they understand that they must shape and protect their brand identities; and they understand that those identities will be judged by the broad public, through public acts. As Howard Bragman puts it, “Celebrities, sponsors and a cause: it’s the golden troika of branding.”

The costs are small compared to the good will. Thus Alicia Keys’s Keep a Child Alive, which provides antiretrovirals to victims of AIDS in Africa, has 78 “corporate partners,” including CBS, Continental Airlines, Condé Nast and Chanel, to pick a few from the C’s. And just as stars have philanthropic managers to help them with causes, corporations with a cause can turn to celebrity recruiters to find just the right star. Thus Rita Tateel, who describes her occupation as recruiting and coordinating celebrities for “cause-related marketing and public relations,” recently hooked up Purina, which wanted to support “small animal-rescue organizations,” with Emily Procter, a star of “CSI Miami,” who, Tateel says, “lives and breathes animal rescue.”