THE CHALLENGE
Help Children’s Defense Fund develop and market a campaign to place a question about child poverty center stage in a Democratic presidential debate.
THE RESULT
The issue of child poverty was raised in a presidential debate for the first time in 20 years, amplified by surrounding media attention and publicity for the nonprofit’s cause.
MEDIA
Our Children Deserve Better
— The New York Times
Poor children deserve a question in the presidential debates
— Change.org petition
10.5 million children in the United States live in poverty.
That’s one in seven children who lack access to quality health care, education, a safe home and food security.
Doing better for our nation’s youth — specifically children living in poverty, children of color and those with disabilities — has motivated the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) since activist Marian Wright Edelman founded the nonprofit in 1973.
CDF strives to ensure every child in America has what they need to thrive. So when the team uncovered that child poverty hadn’t been a topic in presidential debates in 20 years, they set their sights on a challenging goal: placing a question about child poverty in the Democratic presidential debate.
They knew a televised political conversation by the country’s progressive leadership was a prime opportunity to elevate the issue to a national level — and ensure our top candidates had thoughtful policy positions.
To pull this off, CDF partnered with Forthright Advising, adding strategic capacity for the nonprofit. Forthright hopped on board with CDF’s talented national team to fill in any capacity gaps and assist them in reaching their goal.
Through deep collaboration, CDF and Forthright built a victorious campaign — thinking through everything from high level strategy down to nitty gritty details.
Getting a question into a national political debate? Not an easy feat. Change doesn’t happen by chance, and ending child poverty is no exception.
In any campaign, making your voice heard above the fray is a huge challenge — and as you might imagine, a presidential debate is as noisy as they come. So to help get this question into the debate, Forthright helped develop an energetic yet focused framework to ensure the right target audience perceived the issue of child poverty as relevant, urgent and clearly impactful — the triple bottom line when it comes to campaigns.
First up: the backbone of any winning campaign — a rock solid, research-backed communications strategy. Forthright provided guidance to CDF on framing language to place the question in the debate, helping craft a Change.org petition and the overall core messaging for the initiative.
When it came to creating public momentum to drive the campaign forward, social media played a key role. For example, Forthright and CDF worked through details such as how to show which candidates answered/had not yet answered the Change.org petition.
Forthright also developed a framework for best advertising practices for social media, and strategized with the CDF team on target audiences, how to find them on social channels, which filters to use, timing, and length of ad periods.
An article in the New York Times gave the campaign — and the issue of child poverty — a publicity (and credibility) boost.
Besides collecting more than 79,000 signatures of support, the Change.org petition also inspired direct responses from nearly 10 candidates, including Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker.
This collaborative campaign garnered the targeted attention CDF sought — from the public, media outlets and most importantly, the political candidates — to move toward a better life for every child in the United States.
“The Children’s Defense Fund works to give every child what they need to thrive — and that includes shining a light on the shameful child poverty crisis that impacts nearly 12 million children in the United States. When we discovered it had been more than 20 years since a question about child poverty had been asked in a presidential debate, we asked Forthright Advising to help us launch a campaign to change that. Forthright helped us build our campaign plan, refine our messaging, start a Change.org petition, and tailor our media outreach. They were a critical partner in getting the launch of our effort covered in the New York Times.
Building off our successful launch, CDF campaigned for months. We were thrilled when, in February 2020, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos finally asked every Democratic candidate about child poverty on the debate stage, citing our efforts in his question. While we still have a long way to go to improve the lives of the millions of children growing up in poverty, it was an important signal that the topic should be a national priority.”
— Emily Gardner,
Communications Director of the Children’s Defense Fund
