Meet Heather Aldrich

It’s a late night in Milwaukee.

While taking a cab ride home, the police chief suddenly asks the driver to stop. He sees a homeless teen sleeping next to the Hi Hat Lounge, a popular restaurant on the East Side. As he gets out of the car and approaches the teen, dread washes over him. How will he explain this to the driver, to his co-workers?

He fell for one of Milwaukee’s biggest stories in 2008 — a bold campaign to raise awareness for Pathfinders, a shelter and counseling center for at-risk youth. The campaign, brazenly titled “How Can You Sleep?,” involved carefully placing life-like stickers of sleeping homeless teens at bus stops, on billboards and at storefronts across the city.

The campaign was a success, contributing to a 21 percent increase in annual funding for Pathfinders.

The company behind the campaign is Serve Marketing, and the woman behind Serve is Heather Aldrich. With a soft voice and loud hair, she is known for changing the way non-profit organizations attract attention. And within Milwaukee, she’s also known for her “I don’t take no for an answer” attitude.

Aldrich is an essential element to every campaign Serve creates. Photo by Adam Ryan Morris

According to Aldrich, Serve is the only non-profit advocacy advertising firm in the country. While they don’t charge for their services, it’s surprising how often Aldrich’s services are turned down — at least at first.

“Almost every campaign that Serve has done, people initially said no,” says Aldrich.

But Serve wouldn’t exist if Aldrich left it at that.

“If I had to point to my most important lesson learned, it’s that rejection is an opportunity.”

“It’s an opportunity,” she says, to approach the situation “in a way that turns the rejection into approval.”

Campaigns like “How Can You Sleep?” require a bit of patience, which Aldrich believes is key to her success at Serve. It takes time for a campaign to take hold, and it also takes time to “educate anyone who has a say in the campaign,” as Aldrich does.

“We’re not shocking just to be shocking…We want the shock to turn into action,” she says.

And “How Can You Sleep?” did indeed lead to action across Milwaukee. In 2008, Pathfinders saw a 47 percent increase in its donor base. In addition, the Milwaukee police department threatened to fine local restaurant Trocadero after police were continually dispatched to confirm there weren’t actually homeless teens sleeping outside.

Gary Mueller is the executive creative director at BVK, a Milwaukee ad firm, and Serve is around today thanks to him. He traded a partnership and pay raise to make his dream of a non-profit ad agency a reality, but he says Aldrich has made all the difference in getting Serve campaigns to see the light of day.

“She takes people that say no to us, explains the importance of what we do, and she changes people’s opinions,” Mueller says of his prize hire. “That’s very difficult to do, I’ve only seen a handful of people do that.”

Because Serve doesn’t charge for its creative services — the only bill the client pays is to cover production costs — it’s often considered by nonprofits with minimal budgets as a means of reaching the masses.

The United Way of Greater Milwaukee has no shortage of community support, but the wide variety of causes it endorses means funds are quickly spread thin. In 2006, the organization released a landmark report, “If Truth Be Told,” regarding the rising teen pregnancy rate in Milwaukee. As a result of the report, a Teen Pregnancy Oversight Committee formed to begin making concentrated efforts toward lowering the Milwaukee teen pregnancy rate — and they reached out to Serve for help.

A major component of the efforts that followed were Serve campaigns to combat and raise awareness of teen pregnancy. The innovative ads gained national attention, and more importantly, got teens across the city talking about the issue.