Bring Them Back turned an iconic PR campaign of 2016 into a fundraising campaign for 2024.The Coins of Hope are 1 million official two Euro-coins with the head of a missing child, instead of the King. They were launched by ngo Child Focus in 2016, to spread hope for all missing children.In 2024 we turned this into a fundraising campaign by recalling the coins of hope, with a simple message:Bring Them Back.We reposted influencers and politicians posts of 2016 and turned them into PR for today.And used this campaign as a handle to share important data, backing up our story.

Child Focus is the Belgian center for missing and sexually exploited children.

In 2016 they launched a very successful project: Coins of Hope. One million official two euro-coins with the face of Liam Vandenbrande, a boy who has been missing for 25 years. The Coins were a symbol of hope for all missing children. The project got support from all European countries, the Belgian Royal Mint, and the Belgian King in person. It was an enormous success, shared by politicians, influencers and the public and with press coverage all over Europe.

But since 2016, the number of cases for Child Focus just keeps increasing. With 2023 setting a heartbreaking record of nearly 5000 new cases being opened. A 32% increase. But the funding of Child Focus… stayed the same.

Childfocus is known for their missing children posters and awareness campaigns. But funding to conquer increasing challenges put a pressure on their power to act.

For the first time in history, Child Focus was at the brink of running out of resources to fulfill their mission to its best. That’s why we had to make a strategic shift from awareness to fundraising. The leverage to make this shift? Changing their targets without changing their mission: spreading hope.

We had to come up with an idea to raise funds and raise awareness at the same time.

In 2016, Child Focus launched the Coins of Hope. One million official two euro-coins with the face of Liam Vandenbrande, a boy who has been missing for 25 years. Spreading hope for all missing children. The campaign was an enormous success, shared by politicians, influencers and the public and with press coverage all over Europe.

In 2024, we asked everybody to bring their Coins of Hope back.

We created a recall campaign. We made missing posters of the coins of hope. Recalled the coins on social media. Sent messages to coin collectors. And even reposted posts of politicians and influencers who shared the campaign in 2016. Turning an awareness campaign from 2016 into a fundraising campaign for 2024. With just one goal: more donations and more support from our government.

The Coins of Hope was a very successful PR-campaign from Child Focus in 2016, getting attention from all news channels in Belgium, Europe and around the world (Huffington Post, Wired, Skynews, Vanity Fair…) And the cry for help in 2024 was also picked by all major Belgian news channels.

We used the old and the new PR attention to get our message across: Bring back the Coins of Hope to make sure we can keep spreading hope for all children and families in need.

Next to an extensive media campaign to bring back the Coins of Hope, we created a full PR campaign to back up our emotional call with data: the increase of the number of cases Child Focus has to handle, the number of cases handled per day, the lack of budget we are facing, and more.

It resulted in extensive press coverage, interviews on radio and tv, invitations to talk shows and, ultimately, the attention of Belgian politicians.

Not only the PR results, but also the fundraising results were great.

-Extensive press coverage in all major newspapers

-Interviews with Child Focus on radio and tv,

-Invitations to talk shows

-shared online by influencers

+ 110.000 euro received in donations from the public.

+ 500.000 euro was donated through corporations

+ This equals nothing less than 302.000 Coins of Hope

+ Permanent funding for Child Focus by the Belgian government is finally on the political agenda, supported by Flemish minister and vice-president Hilde Crevits and state secretary Leroy.