Share Our Strength

SHARE OUR STRENGTH (SOS) was established by Bill Shore in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine. Seeking to create a sustained source of support for worldwide hunger relief and prevention, and to bring new groups of volunteers into the antihunger movement, Shore tapped the creative talents of chefs, restaurateurs, and food service professionals.

Collecting funds from restaurants nationwide, Shore relied on chefs to spread the SOS message to colleagues and customers. Since 1984, SOS has helped finance the emergency food bank system in the United States, saved lives through famine relief, financed social development projects in developing countries, recruited new groups of antihunger activists, created new wealth for communities, and provided grassroots nutrition education to persons at risk of hunger.

Beginning in 1988, SOS initiated an ongoing series of programs—Taste of the Nation, Writers Harvest: The National Reading, Charge Against Hunger, Operation Frontline, Kids Up Front, Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., and the Great American Bake Sale—de-signed to enlist antihunger volunteers in raising funds for antihunger programs while developing partnerships in which cause-related marketing initiatives offered corporations opportunities to make money (doing well) while being philanthropic (doing good). By 2005, SOS reported raising $180 million to support more than 1,100 antihunger and antipoverty programs throughout the world.

Taste of the Nation is an annual series of events in some 70 cities in North America. Tickets are sold for food and wine tastings, seated dinners, brunches, and barbecues that enable participants to enjoy the company of their peers while contributing funds to anti-hunger efforts. Corporate sponsorship by American Express and Jenn-Air and contributions by restaurants, chefs, and volunteers cover the SOS overhead. They make it possible for 100 percent of ticket sales to support grants for food, health, nutrition education, economic self-sufficiency, and advocacy programs in the United States; and community development and advocacy programs internationally.

The SOS Great American Bake Sale raises money for grants to expand coverage of summer and after-school meal programs for children, advocates children's rights, supports child- and family-focused nutrition education, and provides for family basic needs in the poorest areas of the United States. The program is a partnership between SOS and Parade magazine with sponsorship by ABC Television and Betty Crocker. Individuals, faith-based and youth groups, civic organizations, and businesses are encouraged to host bake sales and contribute the profits to SOS. Since 2003 an estimated one million Americans have baked, sold, or bought at Great American Bake Sales in all 50 states, raising $2.5 million toward ending childhood hunger in the United States.

In Operation Frontline, SOS-trained chefs teach six-week cooking/nutrition classes to low-income people. Participants are taught to shop smart, to eat more fruits and vegetables, and to cook low-cost, nutritious recipes. Kraft Foods is the sponsor of a similar nutrition education program for children—Kids Up Front. The SOS Charge Against Hunger campaign (1993–96) was a [Page 974]cause-related marketing campaign that attempted to provide American Express a competitive advantage during the winter holiday buying season by increasing cardholder loyalty, building merchant relationships, and mobilizing employees. American Express advertised widely that it would donate a portion of every credit card transaction to antihunger efforts, believing that cardholders were concerned about hunger and would respond to the antihunger incentive to use their American Express cards. American Express donated three cents from every transaction during the fourth quarter of the year, raising $21 million for SOS antihunger grants.

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