Voices For Children

Client: Voices for Children of Tampa Bay
Industry: Advocacy/Community/Non-Profit

Challenge:

Budget constraints and a challenging financial market created a demand for more volunteers to handle the overwhelming volume of children in need of ad litem representation in Hillsborough County.

Solution:

HCP worked with the organization for over a year to plan and execute this detailed multi-media campaign for all of Hillsborough County.

Voices for Children (VFC) was founded in 1986 as the Child Advocacy Guild, Inc. The original stated purpose of the organization was to initiate fundraising events and methods and to direct those funds to appropriate activities of the Guardian ad Litem Program; to promote awareness of the activities of the program and to encourage volunteer resources and community activity and awareness.

VFC approached HCP with a major challenge—they were unable to recruit sufficient guardians to meet the demand within Hillsborough County. Additionally, with the guardian deficit, there were fewer voices spreading the word about the program, which challenged VFC’s fundraising efforts on the program’s behalf.

The goal thus became to create a campaign that would raise awareness for the organization in hopes of enhancing donations and recruiting potential volunteers. The campaign aspired to better educate potential recruits and donors of all backgrounds to become engaged with the VFC and Guardian ad Litem organizations.

The effort started with unscripted interviews with 12 VFC volunteers of various career paths and experiences. HCP captured the highly emotional and unique words of the volunteers and their real-life recounts of what it means to be a guardian. These videos were broadcast live on a VFC YouTube channel. Additionally, a broadcast PSA was created and disseminated throughout Hillsborough County cable networks.

HCP negotiated and partnered with various types of media partners to provide maximized media placement for TV (cable), radio, Internet, Transit, Outdoor (billboards), and print.

A strong public relations campaign was implemented to match the unique video-driven Volunteer Campaign. To date, the campaign continues to deliver new volunteers. The first wave resulted in more volunteer guardians stepping up than there were trainers to prepare them. HCP continues to negotiate, implement, and monitor new media placement for VFC.