Menu of Ideas / Other Ideas
Here are a few low-cost / no-cost ideas to get your creative juices flowing.
Businesses and Business Organizations
Collaborating with organizations of business leaders, such as local Chambers of Commerce and Rotary Clubs, would serve two purposes:
You could also work with an individual business. Joint publicity efforts would benefit your cause and raise the business’ profile with potential customers. Ones that serve families and children would be good choices. Strong candidates include the following:
Or ask businesses that meet daily needs:
When approaching a business, explain that child support is critical to the quality of life for some children in your area. Highlight the need for your office’s services, and give real-life stories (using pseudonyms, of course) of people whose lives have improved because of child support. Explain that helping promote your cause will provide good publicity for the business—and will enable the business to make a positive contribution to society.
Collaborate with correctional facilities to educate imprisoned parents. You could develop a curriculum that not only teaches these parents about the child support enforcement system—and the importance of making regular payments once released—but also explains in detail the reason the child support program exists.
Classes can describe the…
Find someone with whom you have a rapport, and invite him or her to lunch or coffee. Explain that you would like to be able to serve the community better.
The panel discussion could focus on what kind of news and feature story ideas child support staff have to offer, what reporters are looking for in a story, and how reporters prefer to be contacted by and work with their sources.
You can invite reporters and editors from local TV or radio stations or newspapers, plus media relations or public affairs specialists who handle child support issues. The event could be called “Making Child Support News” or something similar. Allow networking time before or after the event so that media and child support professionals can meet and mingle.
Ask your public affairs officer for other ideas.
They are effective because they can tug on the heartstrings of moms and dads.
Child support enforcement offices in different localities can share creative ideas for a sponsorship ad. All you would need to do is to send the ad to your TV station and ask them to add the local phone number. Explain that your ad is for a good cause—it’s to help encourage parents to pay the child support their children so desperately need—and ask the station if it will run the ad for free.
Or you could ask businesses to co-sponsor these ads, bringing needed funding to the child support office and needed publicity to the business. Viewers would see, for example, “This message brought to you by your Child Support Enforcement office and Bob’s Hardware.” These ads could run in English and Spanish.
Anywhere that parents are is a good place to post materials that highlight the importance of child support. A simple collaboration that involves reciprocal sharing of material with clients can raise awareness of child support services, and of your ally’s cause.
However, you may be able to create a more committed collaboration that yields better results. Here are some ideas for collaborating with the professionals that single parents may see on a regular basis:
In addition, you could join forces to host a job fair and invite area employers. For attendees, you could hand out materials on the importance of paying child support. Employers could receive information on how income withholding works—and how it can greatly improve a child’s quality of life.
Joining forces with an organization that offers computer training—be it a school, library, nonprofit, or private company—would be a good way both to spread the word about child support services and to give noncustodial parents the skills they need to become gainfully employed.
As such, a collaboration with an educational component might suit your purposes. Try holding an after-work or weekend event for child care professionals. You could give a short seminar that shares the essentials of child support—how it works, why it matters, why parents are safe from concerns about privacy and how to talk to parents about child support. Offer refreshments, if allowed, and a meet-and-greet so that child support staff can begin to establish trust with these professionals. Include handouts on child support—either brochures or more discreet business cards—that these professionals could share with parents.
Serving as a guest speaker at a Head Start or Parent Teacher Association meeting is another low-cost, effective way to spread your message to the people who may need to hear it the most.
You could give a primer on how child support works, how it helps the child, and why the involvement of both parents helps a child to thrive.
When proposing the speaking engagement, explain that while child support can greatly improve a child’s life, members of the Hispanic community may not trust a child support agency that is associated with the government, and as such, may not seek help. Tell them that you are seeking a speaking engagement at their meeting because they have the parents’ trust, and that your message will fall on more receptive ears if they are involved.
Quick, 30-minute educational seminars for busy healthcare professionals can highlight the connection between child support and health. You could create a theme such as “3 Keys for Better Health” and give healthcare professionals three questions they could ask to assess their patients’ need for a referral to child support. These three questions could appear on a wallet-sized card professionals could keep with them for reference.
You also could create a child support poster for waiting room and examining room walls. And of course you could refer your own clients who need medical help to those healthcare professionals.
A first-person story from someone in the community can show that others trust your organization. With the Hispanic community’s strong sense of family, testimonials can also make people feel that others in the community would support their decision to seek child support services.
How to Ask for the Endorsement
You can print them in these or similar formats:
Put them in creative places, such as these:
See if you can get them placed for free, or for a low cost in…
You can also post the photos and quotes, with permission, on your Web site.
Another option is to work with a celebrity to endorse your efforts.
To request these inserts, contact the company’s marketing or outreach coordinator. Explain that child support is critical to the quality of life for some children in your area. Highlight the need for your office’s services, and give real-life stories (using pseudonyms, of course) of people whose lives have improved because of child support. Explain that helping promote your cause will provide good publicity for the business—and will enable the business to make a positive contribution to society.
The items can be anything that you think your audience would like. Here are some possibilities:
Make people feel welcome by giving them out at your offices, trade shows, fairs, and the like.
A town hall meeting could bring together various speakers who could explain the importance of child support and describe their own role in enabling child support. Examples follow:
Bear in mind that the event should come off as friendly. Ensure that child support enforcement staff and all other speakers appear supportive and welcoming so that community members will feel at ease.
National-State-Tribes-Local Level Partnerships
Position yourself as a trusted partner for teen parents, as well.