Hallmark employees know their company’s products enrich people’s lives. But when those products are created in partnership with UNICEF, they also help save the lives of children around the world—and that’s a pretty powerful feeling.

Since 2006 Hallmark has been the exclusive creator and distributor for all greeting cards for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), with 15 percent of net revenue from UNICEF products going to the U. S. Fund for UNICEF. So far nearly $9 million has gone to help children and their families in a variety of ways, such as buying more than 16 million doses of measles vaccine and more than 640,000 insecticide-treated mosquito nets to protect against malaria, and digging more than 6,800 village wells for clean drinking water.

For the designers and artists who work on UNICEF products, it’s an added incentive to know their best work is helping desperately needy children.

“We all feel lucky to have a creative job with a great company,” says Ann Welch, art director of the small creative team that develops UNICEF products. “But it’s an added bonus to be working with a humanitarian organization with the stature of UNICEF, which saves more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization in the world.”

Designer Maria Mignogna adds that a number of Hallmark artists have a special passion for UNICEF. “They’re always thinking of us, always sending art for me to look at even when they’re on other assignments,” she says. “It gives our work a higher purpose. It’s a big emotional reward to know we’re able to help an organization known for putting 90 percent of what it receives right to work to help kids. It really is a big warm and fuzzy.”

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