By SHELLY BANJO
Designer Tommy Hilfiger is looking to bring the idea of ending global poverty into fashion.
On Wednesday, he will announce the formal launch of a five-year campaign to support Millennium Promise, a nonprofit founded by former private-equity financier Ray Chambers and economist Jeffrey Sachs in 2005 to help achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
Earlier this month, Mr. Hilfiger visited Ruhiira, a rural community of 55,000 people in Uganda, where Millennium Village has worked since 2006.
"I never expected poverty to be so extreme," Mr. Hilfiger says. "We saw firsthand how Millennium Village helps communities lift themselves out of poverty."
Millennium Village uses community-led, science-based approaches to fight poverty. It seeks to address a broad spectrum of needs—from teaching farmers how to improve crop yields to providing access to clean water.
The charity says agriculture production in Ruhiira has nearly doubled and malaria prevalence among all ages has decreased from 17% to less than 1% since 2006.
Now Mr. Hilfiger plans to encourage his employees and customers to get involved. While no formal program has been created, he says interested employees will get the opportunity to travel to Ruhiira to volunteer.
In 2011, Mr. Hilfiger plans to launch a cause-marketing program to generate customer awareness and support for the program.
"We want to extend ourselves and use power of our brand to support efforts to end extreme poverty in our lifetime," he says.
Mr. Hilfiger was born in Elmira, N.Y., where he opened his first store, the People's Place, when he was 18 years old. In 1984, he founded Tommy Hilfiger Corp., which he took public in 1992 and then sold in 2006. He remains the brand's principal designer.
During that time he created the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation, which began by focusing on education, health-related organizations and cultural youth programs in the U.S., supporting organizations such as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation and the Race to Erase MS.
Through Millennium Promise, the foundation looks to "go global," according to Mr. Hilfiger.
"Over the last 15 years we've developed our brand into a global brand and we wanted our giving to follow suit," he says.
The $2 million pledged to Millennium Village project currently makes up the majority of the Tommy Hilfiger foundation's assets, which the company funds on a year-to-year basis.
Write to Shelly Banjo at shelly.banjo@wsj.com
