Menu of Ideas / CBO Ideas

In a small 2006 research project, 10 community-based organizations (CBOs) offered their thoughts on their awareness of child support enforcement services. As part of this research, they offered opinions on potential collaborations with child support enforcement offices. All of these CBOs provide services focused on the well-being of children, families, and women. Four are based in Los Angeles and six are in Washington, D.C.

These findings are detailed in Taking the Next Step: A Research & Design Project to Improve Access to Child Support Services by Hispanics prepared for the Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The research revealed that these CBOs are ripe for collaboration opportunities; they demonstrated great interest in collaborating with child support enforcement offices at any level, especially at the grassroots level. They strongly believe there should be a better relationship between them and child support offices to foster a sharing of marketing materials and overall information that could influence the affected population.

However, they do not collaborate with child support because their awareness and understanding of child support enforcement offices is low. They refer their clients to other nonprofits instead of child support enforcement offices.

Child support enforcement offices can change this by informing CBOs about the services they provide. By understanding child support enforcement services, the CBOs will be better able to inform their stakeholders.

All of the CBOs interviewed would like to receive marketing materials from child support enforcement offices that include this information:

• Accessing child support services: Explain the pros and cons of starting the child support process, how to seek child support services, and what information the client needs to start the process.
• Contacting child support offices: Who should the client talk to—and who can speak with the CBO about the client’s case?

Keep this information in mind as you approach potential allies—many will likely have the same questions.

Below are the most common outreach methods these CBOs use. You could ask to collaborate with them on these activities so that you can extend your message to—and connect with—their audience, and vice versa:

• Organize yard sales and open house activities.
  
• Invite the community to their facilities and share marketing materials. See our Hispanic Outreach Toolkit.
  
• Show materials—including pictures and information about their program—at public fairs, health fairs, city fairs.
  
• Join with local Spanish-language media (radio, TV, print) to market services.
  
• Employ promotoras to do home visits.
  
• Share information with Spanish talk radio programs.

They recommend posting information in these locations:

• Other nonprofits’ offices.
  
• Department of Motor Vehicles offices.
  
• Schools—Grade schools, high schools, and vocational schools.
  
• Restaurants.
  
• Grocery stores.
  
• Churches.
  
• Ads on buses and bus shelters.
  
• Adult English as a Second Language classes.
  
• Medical clinics and WIC offices.
  
• Centers where food stamps are distributed.
  
• Libraries.
  
• Banks.
  
• Health fairs for the public.

 

These CBOs have also found word of mouth and person-to-person meetings to be especially effective in spreading word of their services. Join them in an awareness campaign, and you can both enjoy added publicity.

Here are some more ideas for CBOs with whom you could collaborate:

• Boys and Girls Clubs: These clubs reach out to low-income children and serve a large proportion of minorities. As a result, they are a good place to reach parents of children who may need child support assistance. A collaboration with these clubs could include a joint application process; when parents apply for club programs, they could also receive information on child support and agree to be contacted by the nearest child support office.

  Or you could co-sponsor an art or poetry contest on families, inviting children to express what their families mean to them. This collaboration would create awareness of your services if your agency’s name appeared on entry forms and with the winning entries.

• Faith-Based Organizations: Faith-based organizations may be your entrée to the Hispanic community. Religion plays an important role in many Hispanics’ lives. As such, churches or other faith-based organizations are a prime avenue for finding this population. In addition, while members of the Hispanic community may mistrust a government child support agency, they are likely to trust the church.

While you can ask the church to distribute your materials as part of an educational campaign, a more-effective approach is to ask church elders to advocate personally for your cause. You could request that bible study teachers devote one class to child support, perhaps quoting scripture that highlights the importance of family and then opening a discussion on how child support can strengthen families.

Or set up a group of child support mentors within the church, so that people who are considering seeking child support can ask questions and receive personal advice from an esteemed community member.

• Hispanic Organizations: A publicity campaign with Hispanic organizations could focus on Hispanics’ rights—both the rights that the other organization works for and the right of children to receive child support. The campaign could raise awareness of the rights that Hispanics have, and educate people on how to exercise those rights—including applying for child support.

Another option is a “Heritage Day” event in which you encourage Hispanics to celebrate their cultural traditions and their families. The emphasis on culture would be a good stepping stone to child support; you could hand out materials stating that children who know their fathers usually know their entire family and may identify better with their heritage. You also could appeal to fathers to strengthen their families by paying child support and connecting with their children.

• Volunteer Organizations: To find volunteers who can help you implement your ideas, try forming a collaboration with an organization that serves as a clearinghouse for volunteers in your area. Many communities have organizations and/or Web sites that match volunteers with needy organizations.

For example, New York City has an organization called New York Cares that each year posts local volunteer opportunities for 850 organizations to its 33,000 volunteers. Greater DC Cares is a similar organization in Washington, D.C.

VolunteerMatch.org is a free online service that lets you post volunteer opportunities nationwide. Potential volunteers can search the opportunities by zip code, then click on your link to contact you and offer their help.

Search online or check your phone directory for similar organizations and sites, then contact them to see how you can sign up.