1

Running Head: Rebuilding Together

Rebuilding Together
Diandra Verme
Joyce Garnica
Gilbert Giner
Tetyana Zhyvotovska
RWS 1301
February 15, 2016

2
Rebuilding Together is a non-profit organization aimed at helping those who do
not have the money or physical ability to fix their homes on their own. Rebuilding
Together works towards giving people the help they need in order to have a proper,
livable home. Through their website, the organization makes repeated appeals to the
ethics, logic, and emotions of viewers in order to motivate them into giving their support
through monetary donations or volunteering their time. According to the website, the
organization officially became Rebuilding Together when it opened its national office in
1988.
There are numerous facts about the organization on its website, including past
operations. The organization Rebuilding Together initially started in 1973 as a small
group of people in Midland, Texas, who came to realize a growing need in their
community. They understood that maintaining homes is not always a simple matter, as
there is no feasible way for an economically disadvantaged family or individual to
provide basic needs for their loved ones and/or themselves and pay the expenses of home
maintenance when there is barely enough money for the former purpose. As such these
people gathered together and donated their time and money to help out their neighbors in
tasks they could not do themselves. Today, Rebuilding Together has grown into a premier
nonprofit housing organization, garnering five consecutive four-star ratings from Charity
Navigator. Rebuilding Together is a national leader in safe and healthy housing with more
than 40 years of experience. They have built over 8,500 homes and have enlisted the aid
of over 75,318 volunteers, consisting of both highly skilled professionals and dedicated
every-day people. Their funding is derived from donations given by companies,
organizations, and regular people, as well as backing from corporate sponsors. The

3
organization has a feature on their website where one can directly donate whatever they
can. Recently in El Paso, Wells Fargo donated $12,550, which allowed the organization
to make critical repairs in three homes in El Paso. These facts act as a testament to the
good work the organization does, giving credibility to its name.
An key part of gathering new members and contributors into a nonprofit
organization is establishing an emotional connection between possible contributors and
the goals of the organization. It is important to note that the pages on the web site do not
contain many colors or details. The purpose of this bland design is to draw the observers
attention to the important elements of the page, these being the images displaying
decrepit homes and the elderly people who volunteer to help rebuild them. The images of
run down homes create a feeling of empathy towards the inhabitants of the homes, while
also leading observers to develop a sense of moral duty to aid people such as those
depicted. The images of the elderly volunteers aim to further strike this sense of moral
duty in observers, such that the elderly should not have to contribute their energy alone
while there are younger people in better shape who could also render assistance. The
volunteers are depicted as having a sense of accomplishment, which implies that the work
this organization does is important enough to grant satisfaction upon completion
regardless of the effort required. The expressions of joy in the faces of homeowners
whos houses have been repaired show that the work this organization does brings hope
and comfort to the less fortunate, further motivating the audience to take part in the work.
There is an informational video featuring Morgan Freeman as the spokesperson. In this
video, there is heavy use of run down homes supported by related commentary, including
repetition of the word hope and how it is embodied in the work done by the organization.

4
The dialogue of the video is very solemn and laden with subtle emotional appeals to the
audience to contribute to the goals of the organization out of moral responsibility. The
word choices in the dialogue also function to create a sense of unity. Examples of these
unifying words are love, rebirth of spirit, overcoming desperation, and friendship. An
important function of these words is how they are used in unison with description of the
labor undergone to create the repairs needed to these homes, suggesting that hope, love,
and friendship are synonymous with lending aid to the less fortunate in the form of
volunteer labor. If these words have any significance to an observer, then they should
help out in any way that they can.

Another important step of maintaining a functional organization is keeping

contributors comfortable with giving their support. A key method of doing this is assuring
them that all operations are a responsible and appropriate use of resources. Utilizing
logical reasoning allows the audience to be aware that a group of people working together
as one can greatly assist and transform the lives of low-income homeowners using the
organizations resources. The images this organization depicts show the unlivable
conditions some people are forced to live in so as to attest to the need to use the
organizations resources to rectify these problems. This keeps contributors content with
funding the organization, which in turn allows the organization to continue to improve
the safety and quality of homes as well as revitalizing the communities around them. The
website features an informational video introducing newcomers of the website to the
organization. The spokesperson in the video is Morgan Freeman. Using a well-known
celebrity whom is in good social standing to speak on the behalf of Rebuilding Together

5
serves to vouch for the credibility of the organization. As Morgan Freeman talks about
the organization, he explains the importance of the work the organization conducts. As
the website states, several well-known groups, such as Wells Fargo Bank, have given
financial assistance to the organization, as have many individual donors. The website
states that the exact amount of money donated by Wells Fargo on one occasion was
$12,550, which was used to make important repairs in exactly three homes in El Paso.
Thousands of volunteers, both skilled professionals and regular every-day people, have
donated their time and labor to reconstruction projects of the organization. The website
shows the pictures of several volunteer groups who have helped complete local projects
in El Paso, as well as the before and after images of homes which have been renovated.
These pictures stand as proof to the work that the organization has done. Additional facts
about the organization include work done in 2014, where volunteers rebuilt 8,186 homes
in 77 community spaces and aided 230 nonprofit facilities across the nation.
In summation, Rebuilding Together has utilized ethos, pathos, and logos very
effectively in its website in order to draw in as many members of the audience into its
cause. Those who created the website knew that maximizing the appeals to logic, ethics,
and emotion is the most efficient way to persuade others.