May 2002

What does it take to make positive policy change for kids? How can a broad media strategy effectively intersect with direct communications with policy makers? What role can "non-traditional" voices play in policy change?

Youth Matters is finding answers to these questions in its effort to ensure that every child in the Richmond region reads at grade level by grade three. For example, the Virginia General Assembly recently restored funding in the state budget for healthy families, thanks in large measure to the communication efforts of Youth Matters and other active advocacy groups.

Youth Matters is both an Urban Health initiative campaign and an initiative of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce.

The healthy families funding effort is a component of Youth Matters' overall strategy, called Richmond Region Reads…The 3R Campaign. The 3R Campaign seeks to incorporate family literacy programs into home visitor programs; enhance the capacity of preschools to provide learning environments; provide intensive in-school tutoring; and enhance out-of-school environments by infusing proven learning approaches into on-going activities.

What's particularly instructive about Youth Matters' recent legislative effort is that it illustrates an effective integration of a media strategy with communication efforts directed at policy makers. And, it demonstrates the value of "non-traditional" voices, in this case the business community. Some highlights:

Media strategy:
Youth Matters has a two-pronged media strategy. It uses earned media, TV, video and print promotions and other tactics to raise awareness of Youth Matters and its commitment to, and role in, promoting children's literacy. The media strategy positions Youth Matters as a "player" and an expert in the field; it helps give Youth Matters standing when it comes to the legislature.

In addition, through paid advertising, National Public Radio sponsorships, a direct response web site and other means, Youth Matters seeks to increase understanding of the 3R Campaign and to provide opportunities for individuals and groups to become involved. And, it raises awareness of the central problem: 32 percent of Richmond region third graders aren't reading at grade level.

Message development:
After conducting market research, Youth Matters selected the tagline "Get Involved for Selfish Reasons" for the 3R Campaign.

"Our tagline helps people connect taxes, crime, jobs and economic development with child literacy," says Youth Matters Executive Director Veronica Templeton. "It creates a way for us to connect to issues at the forefront of people's minds."

The process of developing the public relations campaign necessitated a critical analysis of messages. "We gave a lot of effort to considering how we say things, how we boil down messages and make them simple," says Jennifer Scott, director of public relations for consulting firm RightMinds. "We took programmatic language and turned it into something digestible."

The time spent on message development paid off as Youth Matters then turned attention to the state legislature. "Many policy makers have expressed a general support for literacy. Through our communications effort we've been able to articulate to them a strategy that helps them achieve their goals," says Templeton. "We've promoted the 3R Campaign as THE strategy for literacy, and key legislators have begun to adopt language and data that we provide them."

New constituency/non-traditional voices:
The use of businesspeople and business lobbyists in the effort is key. Youth Matters, through the Richmond Chamber, uses professional lobbyists to help establish relationships with legislators. "The lobbyists help us get in to see the Speaker of the House and the communications campaign helps us to tell the story succinctly and with familiar language." The Chamber convened the Capital Region Caucus and solicited its support for restoring the healthy families money in the budget.

The voices of influential businesspeople are not often raised in a child policy matter, and their involvement - such as making connections with and signing letters to legislators - was persuasive. "It was important for us to work with existing advocacy groups, experts who have long been in the field, and not assume we have all the answers," says Templeton. "At the same time, we bring a different constituency - the business community - into the cause."

Thinking long term:
Although having the money for healthy families restored in the state budget during the 2002 legislative session was an accomplishment, Youth Matters was realistic with its "ask". "During a time of a significant state budget deficit, we new it wasn't realistic to ask for more money," says Templeton. "We worked to restore money that had been eliminated."

In addition, Youth Matters helped secure budget language that will lay the groundwork for future efforts. This language requires the Secretary of Education to review the state's use of funds related to early childhood reading initiatives. In addition, the Secretary is to recommend additional actions the state can take to secure the maximum available funding from federal, state and private sources aimed at assisting children and their families with early family assisted reading, pre-school programs for early learning, K-3 reading initiatives, and after-school learning assistance programs which will assist children in reading at grade level when they reach third grade.

Although the budget language and restored funding aren't the legislative actions needed to get Youth Matters reading strategies fully implemented, they do prevent a slide in legislative commitment and set the stage the next General Assembly session.

Templeton says one thing that they would have done differently is to spend more time educating legislators before the session began. "With so much going on - such as the budget deficit driven by the phased-in elimination of the state car tax, the impact of Sept. 11 and the economic downturn - we found that kids were not on the forefront of legislators' minds," she says. "So to have raised their level of attention to children's issues, particularly prevention issues like literacy, would have been helpful."

With their goal to have all third graders reading at grade-level by 2010, Youth Matters will continue to hone its communications effort because, as the communications tagline goes on to say, "Your life gets better when kids read better."

For more information about Youth Matters on this website, click here. For more information about literacy on this website, click here.