O.N.E’ s mission is to provide support and accommodation for homeless Irish veterans.In 2019, O.N.E desperately needed funds to keep its 3 hostels open but significant barriers stood in the way of fundraising:

Invisible victims: Service personnel play a vital role for the nation but make up only 0.4% of the working population (1).Public awareness of the plight of Irish veterans is non-existent.As a neutral nation, our apathetic attitude towards veterans is unique compared to other countries.

Increasing homelessness: Homelessness in Ireland more than doubled between 2014-2018(2).As people become desensitized to an issue, it becomes harder to spur urgency in donations.

Declining donations: Share of Irish households donating and the value of donations to charities was in decline over the previous decade(3).

Scale of competition: There were over 75 organisations providing homeless services, all competing for public and private funding. O.N.E. were small and unknown. In 2018, the Peter McVerry Trust (just one of the many better known homeless charities) received almost x60 the donation amount O.N.E did - €13,911,157vs.€233,764(4)

CSO Labour Force Survey quarter 3 2020–8,751 permanent personnel in the Defence Forces.

https://www.focusireland.ie/resource-hub/latest-figures-homelessness-ireland/

https://www.benefacts.ie/philanthropy/reports/charitable-giving-in-ireland-2020/trends-in-household-giving/

(4)Charities regulator filed annual reports

Creative Challenge

The problem was that in a world awash with people deserving help, veterans were invisible within the wider issue of homelessness. We set a challenge to get the nation to pay attention to a little-known homeless charity that served people who were not even considered to be vulnerable.

Solution

Culturally, Ireland was at an interesting point as a nation - we were feeling smug on the world stage in becoming a more just and inclusive nation by passing the 2015 Marriage Equality Act(5) and Repeal the 8th in 2018(6).

However, when it came to caring for our veterans, we were failing.

This tension led to our insight – Irish people want to feel pride at being a just nation but how we treat our veterans is uniquely unjust.

While most other charities tap into empathy, our strategy was to make the Irish public feel ashamed that O.N.E stand alone in protecting our veterans.

(5) http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PR15000577

(6)https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/ireland-votes-to-remove-constitutional-ban-on-abortion-by-resounding-two-thirds-majority-1.3510068

Execution

The flag is an incredibly important symbol to all members of the Irish military. We were struck by the injustice that Irish veterans risk everything, including their lives, to serve the flag, but it doesn’t always serve them.

Thus, we created Sleeping Flags.Pairing the iconic green, white and orange flag with the object most universally associated with homelessness: the sleeping bag. Turning the revered Irish flag into a sleeping bag to be used by homeless veterans sleeping on the streets.

Volunteer veterans took to the streets in these specially created Sleeping Flags beside historically significant landmarks.

Within 48 hours, Sleeping Flags led to a 4,560% increase in donations to the site. The campaign led to an 18% increase in income versus 2018(7).

In 2021, O.N.E will open a new hostel which means there will be 1825 more opportunities yearly for a veteran to sleep in a safe environment.

(7)O.N.E Internal Accounts