Awards and altruism: How adland decides where to give away its creativity

At times, the world in 2026 appears to be one huge crisis. From climate-change induced weather events and the deliberate targeting of civilians in wars around the world to the systemic racism condemning millions to shorter, harsher lives. It’s fair to say the history through which we’re currently living is not for the faint-hearted. 

With so many different fires to fight – literally and metaphorically – our capacity to help can feel greatly diminished. Charity fatigue is real and driven in large part by a feeling of crisis overload but crucially it’s not only individual donors who are now giving less to worthy causes. 

The funding environment for global humanitarian and development organisations has changed drastically over the past couple of years.

Anna Santos is Chief Marketing Officer of ReSurge International, a charity helping people in low-income countries gain access to reconstructive surgery. ReSurge collaborated probono with Ogilvy Health and Papaya Films for their Closing the Gap campaign, which reframed the misconception of reconstructive surgery as an elective procedure, common in developed countries, into the life-saving medical intervention it is in low- income countries. 

Santos points out that “the funding environment for global humanitarian and development organisations like ours has changed drastically over the past couple of years with the dismantling of USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] the largest single source of global relief funding. So, campaigns like Closing the Gap are crucial for us to expand our reach and galvanise a new generation of supporters.”

Above: This powerful film captures how lives have been changed by local surgeons trained by the charity ReSurge International

Now that traditional sources of income are so much harder to come by, adland has an even greater role to play. This in turn raises another issue. With budgets tightening and clients expecting more work for less money the demand on creative time is ever greater, so how agencies decide which projects to take on becomes an even more pointed question. 

One of the main drivers will always be a personal connection to the work. Derek Green, CCO of TBWA\RAAD, oversaw the Law Under Attack campaign. Created in conjunction with the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), it highlighted where International Humanitarian Law was being violated in the conflict in Lebanon with the targeting of hospitals and ambulances. 

With a team based in Beirut and another in the south of Lebanon, the conflict and its devastating effects felt, Green says, “very, very real for them on a daily basis.” No surprise then there was a collective desire to make this work.

Above: This campaign highlighted the unlawful targeting of hospitals and medical personnel in conflict areas, with muralist Ghaleb Hawila inscribing articles from the Geneva Convention onto the shattered walls of the last operational hospital in Southern Lebanon.

Green explains that Laws Under Attack was made ‘for the love of it’ with the teams giving up their own time to make it happen. “We’d spend the evenings working on this and a lot of the shoots happened on the weekends. We're talking about doing lots of stuff after hours. It was a project we had to try and carve out time for. But it was our choice to do it.’

The results of both Close the Gap and Laws Under Attack are striking. In the case of the former it drove a 227% rise in new donors and 490% in new donor revenue. The latter convinced 102 countries to publicly renew their commitment to humanitarian law under the Geneva Convention. 

Both campaigns were awarded too, with Laws Under Attack winning a Bronze Cannes Lion in Media and MENA’s only 2026 D&AD Yellow Pencil, while Close the Gap picked up a Bronze Effie and Clio Award the same year. This matters, because while a commitment to the work is vital to getting it made, the goodwill and positive PR that comes with industry recognition helps make sure an agency will commit to similar projects in the future.

Advertising has always been about results, whether that equates to more money for your client’s shareholders or something which actually benefits the world.

Renata Maia, North American CCO at Ogilvy Health says this is right, “not because awards validate purpose, but because effectiveness does. Recognition, including an Effie in Nonprofit, is the industry saying: this moved people to act. A Clio Health in Creative Effectiveness is saying: the creativity was not decorative, it was instrumental. When you can say, ‘we reshaped public perception of an entire category of healthcare and multiplied donor revenue by nearly five times’, you are speaking a language that unlocks future investment, future commitment, and future creative courage.”

Above: Artplan’s installation for Unicef saw a classroom turned into a greenhouse to show how climate change is disrupting children’s learning.

Advertising has always been about results, whether that equates to more money for your client’s shareholders or something which actually benefits the world. You’re more likely to illicit a positive reaction from your CFO with figures rather than good intentions.

A good story breaks through the noise and grabs hold. That’s how you turn empathy into measurable action, driving the donations that actually change lives.

The more specific the measurement of success, the better. Subjecting non-profit work to the same kind of rigour that paid work is exposed to is a good way to make sure it’s taken seriously. This proves that these are not nice-to-have side projects but an important part of any credible agency’s creative output. 

Jessie Nagel is the co-founder of Green The Bid, a non-profit committed to boosting environmental production practices. To her mind the industry is very good at producing ‘beautiful, cinematic work in the non-profit space that looks wonderful but isn’t always connected to deeper or integrated strategy to deliver its fullest impact'. Giving it the scrutiny that all good creative work deserves means it can go, in Nagel’s words, ‘beyond just getting eyeballs’ and affect positive change.

Main image and above: Still from Unlikely Greenhouses. 

Part of its ability to do this is that creativity connects in a way that news does not. Marta Spychalska, executive producer at Papaya Films, notes that, in an age where we are bombarded by data, it’s emotion that resonates. “Stats explain the problem, but creativity makes you feel it. Raw data gets swallowed by our feeds in seconds, but a good story breaks through the noise and grabs hold. That’s how you turn empathy into measurable action, driving the donations and backing that actually change lives.”

Work that drives social action comes with its own unique benefits and challenges. Spychalska says “you get far more creative freedom. But that freedom carries a big weight. When dealing with real-life stories and vulnerable people, respect and truth have to come well before clever concepts.”

You get far more creative freedom. But that freedom carries a big weight.

This sense of responsibility is echoed by Rodrigo Almeida, CCO at Artplan. He oversaw the Unlikely Greenhouse project for UNICEF Brazil, turning a school classroom into an intense, heated installation to mimic and emphasise the effects of climate change on children. For him, “creative freedom has much more to do with the relationship and trust you build with a client than with whether or not a project is pro bono.”

“And when you’re dealing with sensitive social issues,” Almeida adds, “that freedom also comes with a great deal of responsibility. The main limitation is usually budget. But that also pushes us to find different paths.”

Of course not all socially conscious work is done for free. Another of Almedia’s campaigns is Black Body, a damning look at how black patients in Brazil routinely suffer worse outcomes in the healthcare system than white patients. In this instance, Almedia says, “the project was created for IDOMED, which is part of Yduqs, Brazil’s largest private education group and a client of the agency. The idea came from a real issue identified by the client itself, and together we found a creative way to address it.”