Usually, this article is devoted to a campaign. Today, it is being devoted to almost a hundred.
Since 2003, a health care company named EHE International has donated the space in a window below its office at 10 Rockefeller Plaza — between 48th and 49th Streets in Midtown Manhattan, next to the Nintendo World store — to nonprofit organizations, mostly in the realm of health and wellness. Each organization gets the window for a month, setting up displays featuring elements like signs, posters and photographs, along with video clips that run on a monitor.
EHE, which specializes in annual health examinations and other preventive health care, estimates the value of the donated space each year at $600,000 to $1.2 million. Several dozen organizations have been selected to use the space, some more than once.
Among those that have appeared in the window are the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing, the Histiocytosis Association of America and the Light of Life Foundation.
Also making appearances have been Lighthouse International, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, the National Tourette Syndrome Association, the Prevent Blindness Foundation, the Shade Foundation, Stand Up to Cancer and the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance.
One campaign that gets the window regularly — the Heart Truth initiative for women’s heart health, known for its red dress symbol and sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute — appears there because EHE has been supporting the campaign for many years.
The organization selected for the window in December — when foot traffic is multiplied as visitors come to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center — is typically related to children and children’s health; they include the National Partnership for Immunization and Toys for Tots.
This month, the window has been turned over to the Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation. The window carries entreaties like “Give the gift of hope” and “Pediatric cancer: Help us find a cure.”
EHE has had the window since the early 1990s, says Deborah McKeever, president of EHE, when the company moved to Rockefeller Center from an office at Madison Avenue and 50th Street.
The landlord “threw the window in with the lease,” she adds, adding that EHE recently renewed the lease for 25 years.
Initially, EHE “had our own messaging” in the window, Ms. McKeever says, related to the company’s status as “the largest physical exam provider in the nation.”
After a while came the realization that “we can talk about physical exams all day,” she adds, “and then what are you going to say?” From that came the idea of “giving a gift” of the window display space to organizations that “could otherwise not afford it,” Ms. McKeever says.
EHE works with a public relations agency in New York, Danielides Communications, on the applications from the organizations to use the window. The organizations can have professional assistance to decorate the window or take care of it themselves.
For instance, says Joan Shey, president at the Light of Life Foundation in Monroe Township, N.J., which had the window last month, she worked with Barb Salzman of the Hatch Creative Studio in New York.
The window for the Light of Life Foundation, which is devoted to helping those with thyroid cancer, brought to life its long-running public service campaign, which carries the theme “Check your neck.”
The window included a clock with the legend “Time to check your neck for thyroid cancer” and, in a Dali-esque touch, rows of mannequin heads with clock hands attached to the upper parts of their necks.
Ms. Shey started the foundation in 1997 when she was being treated for thyroid cancer.
“After two years of feeling alone and isolated, I woke up one night and said that if I save one person from this, I will have made a difference,” she says.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/business/media/this-effort-opens-a-new-window-every-month.html?partner=rss&emc=rss