THE LEGACY OF ‘WORLD’ AT ONE YEAR

“We Are the World” has brought in $32.7 million in royalties to USA for Africa since the all-star recording was released one year ago this week.

Add $3.9 million in direct donations, $3.4 million from T-shirt and other merchandise sales, $3.1 million from television licensing fees . . . and $1.4 million in bank interest earned on all of that money . . . and the USA for Africa Foundation’s total first-year income as of Feb. 1 stood at $44.5 million.

There are still a few more million dollars to be reported and earned from videocassette sales, foreign royalties and post-Grammy purchases of the record in the United States, according to executive director Marty Rogol.

But, for the most part, the long and noble commercial life of “We Are the World” is over.

Its legacy includes a $950,000 garage in Ethiopia, a fleet of 18 tractors for Mozambique and half of a $1.5-million bridge being reconstructed over a river in Chad. The other $750,000 is being funded by Bob Geldof’s Band Aid/Live Aid Trust.

The spending of the “We Are the World” largess is detailed in a 103-page report released Saturday.

“It’s predicated on the effort we have made all along to show people how the ‘We Are the World’ dollars were spent,” Rogol told The Times. “We told them a year ago that’s what we would do.”

The summary financial report is unofficial. The formal audit of USA for Africa’s books does not begin until March 17 and does not have to be forwarded to the Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies until mid-May, Rogol said.

Nonetheless, the USA for Africa Foundation report probably should be required reading for all would-be pop charity impresarios.

At a time when the Concert That Counts, the Pro Peace March and even USA for Africa’s own Hands Across America project are struggling to survive and drive home a social message, the foundation that was midwife to last year’s anti-famine movement has published a candid blueprint on how to win and retain the public’s trust.

USA for Africa was only $5.5 million short of its first-year goal of raising $50 million. Though it took several months to get its spending started, the fledgling anti-famine organization had spent or committed $18.9 million for emergency relief items by the end of 1985.

As of last week, the USA for Africa board of directors also had spent or committed another $24.5 million toward long-term recovery and development projects, such as the purchase of seed and fertilizer and the digging of water wells.

Pop fans who bought “We Are the World” also bought relief goods ranging from 2 million liters of truck fuel to 5 million Vitamin A capsules, as well as several thousand metric tons of other food and supplies.

And USA for Africa, which had much of its overhead expenses donated, paid the rest of its $579,000 in 1985 administrative costs--including $91,000 in travel expenses--out of the $1.4 million in interest the foundation earned on its bank accounts.

Despite its monetary epitaph, “We Are the World” does have one more task to perform on Good Friday.

In three weeks, USA for Africa officials hope to launch “Hands Across America”--the 1986 successor to “We Are the World”--the same way they did last year’s mega-hit.

USA for Africa president Ken Kragen hopes to get America’s 8,000 radio stations to repeat the gimmick that gave “We Are the World” its first major boost last year: a simultaneous air play from coast to coast of the three-time Grammy-winning song.

Then the stations would follow up with a gang broadcast of “Hands Across America,” written by three New York jingle writers as the anthem of the national hand-holding event of the same name, scheduled for May 25.

Whereas the goal of “We Are the World” was to raise $50 million for African famine, the goal of “Hands Across America” is to generate $100 million to feed the homeless and hungry of the United States.