Job Title: Celebrity wrangler for a nonprofit organization
Employers: Large charities
Openings: Word of mouth, networking
Salary Cap: $100,000
Number of Jobs: Less than a dozen |
How much would you pay for the chance to accompany Scarlett Johansson to a premiere of her new movie this fall? If you were a bidder in the eBay auction earlier this year of celebrity "experiences" to benefit Oxfam, the answer was $40,000. Similarly, a date with Kristin Davis to the premiere of Sex and The City went for $50,000, and lunch with actress Minnie Driver went for a whopping $90,000.
All told, the celebrity auction raised $267,000 for the antipoverty group, not to mention all the publicity the event generated, and most of this windfall could be attributed to the efforts of one woman—Oxfam’s designated "public figure liaison" (read: celebrity wrangler) Lyndsay Cruz.
It’s her job to identify stars like Johansson and Davis and persuade them to lend their support and visibility, often by taking trips with them to underdeveloped countries to see firsthand the kinds of situations Oxfam is trying to address. Oxfam currently has about 15 "ambassadors" who have agreed to make appearances, including those mentioned above and other actors like Colin Firth, Helen Mirren, Gael Garcia Bernal, Djimon Hounsou, and Emile Hirsch.
Celebrity wrangling has become an increasingly vital function in the nonprofit world, as mega-celebrities like Bono, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney ramp up awareness of their causes with their star wattage. The Red Cross, Amnesty International, Unicef, and Operation Smile are all among the large nonprofits that have added full-time celebrity wranglers in recent years.
"There’s a lot of competition" for stars now, says the 30-year-old Cruz. "There’s a lot of NGOs, and they all have celebrities; everyone seems to have a cause these days."
Cruz says that in choosing which celebrities to pursue as endorsers, she tries to track up-and-coming stars, research their personal interests and background, and find those that might have a connection to Oxfam’s mission and programs, adding that she never poaches from other organizations’ stable of stars.
Sometimes the stars come looking for her, as was the case with emerging star Emile Hirsch, who became interested in Oxfam because the real-life character he portrayed in Into the Wild gave his life savings to Oxfam before leaving on his life-changing journey.
After meeting Hirsch at the premiere of Into the Wild, Cruz invited him to go on a trip to Africa to learn more about what Oxfam was doing there, and this past spring, Hirsch took up Cruz on her offer.
The pair took a grueling 30-hour trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they visited refugee camps and met with women and children devastated by the conflict there.
Cruz says Hirsch soaked it all up like a sponge and took notes in a diary. Often he would talk with Cruz about the perspective he had gained about his own life by viewing all the difficulties the local people faced.
"It made him feel more connected to our cause, which is good for us," says Cruz, who’s been to places like Ethiopia and Tanzania many times now with various celebrities in tow.
Most of the time, Cruz says they’re on their best behavior because of what Oxfam is all about, but on one trip, a well-known actress began complaining about the difficult travel conditions. At that point, Cruz had to exercise the other occasional aspect of her job—babysitting. She calmly upbraided the prima donna, explaining to her that the people who lived there had to endure conditions like that every day and that they were only there only for a short visit. Everything was fine after that.
Cruz went from accompanying one sort of diva to another, having initially worked in Washington doing advance-planning traveling ahead of Vice President Dick Cheney after graduating from college in 2000.
Her travel experience led her to be tapped by then-Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill on a fact-finding mission organized by U2 frontman Bono to see how U.S. foreign aid was being used in Africa. While on that trip, Cruz became inspired by an Oxfam project in Ghana that built a well that supplied fresh water to an entire community of 1,400 people. "I really did have a life-changing experience," says Cruz. "I saw extreme poverty, but saw that there were ways to change."
When Cruz returned to the U.S., she hounded the executives at Oxfam for a job, and after six months, Oxfam agreed to hire her as a press officer. While there, she kept in touch with Bono’s people, and, as she began working more frequently with celebrities, she was eventually able to launch a program dedicated to recruiting high-profile personalities in 2004, which she now runs.
"I literally do pinch myself because I’m so fortunate I get to do this," say Cruz. "I am so lucky to be able to see the world and travel with these public figures and reach a mainstream audience."
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