Children's Advocacy

The Child Support Reform Initiative, a collaborative of child advocates, worked to abolish California’s fragmented, dysfunctional child support collection system. At the onset of the campaign the state was collecting payments for less than 12% of the children owed support. The goal was to create public pressure to establish a statewide agency to overhaul collections. The Initiative secured significant foundation support and news coverage, including a front page series in The Los Angeles Times. After years of news coverage detailing dismal collection rates, state legislators and the governor passed a bill to move child support collection to the state’s Franchise Tax Board. While collection rates still hover in the 40% range, millions of dollars owed to California’s children have been recovered by the reformed system. Barbara Grob was director of the Child Support Reform Initiative, acting as a lead spokesperson, media trainer, fundraiser and publisher of annual data reports. Key partners were the National Center for Youth Law and Children Now.

Children Now uses the power of media to influence public policy. In the early 1990s their annual Report Card on the status of children generated stories in every daily newspaper in the state, along with many TV and radio reports. Measuring health, education, safety, and teen welfare the Report Card told adults, policymakers in particular, how they must improve services for kids. A blue ribbon board including public officials, academics and business leaders established the Children Now Report Card as the lead arbiter on the status of children in California.

Public/Private Partnerships

California Works for Better Health (CWBH), a statewide employment and public health initiative, demonstrated the link between good jobs and improved health. The five-year, $40 million project to engage business leaders, public officials and community groups was funded by The California Endowment and The Rockefeller Foundation. Barbara Grob developed inaugural campaign materials and provided media training to CWBH groups in Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno and Sacramento.

City agencies have a responsibility to communicate with key audiences to explain public services and maintain partnerships with the private sector. Barbara Grob developed annual reports and marketing materials for the San Francisco Private Industry Council, San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing and Economic Development, and other city agencies focused on job training, community development and affordable housing in the Bay Area.

Public Health and Family Planning

Barbara Grob supervised national campaigns on reproductive rights, teen pregnancy and international family planning for Planned Parenthood Federation of America over five years while on staff at Public Media Center. We developed ground-breaking print, broadcast and transit ad campaigns during intense legal and legislative challenges to family planning programs. The annual $1.5 million media program engaged a record number of advocates and spiked financial support for reproductive rights advocacy work.

Blue Shield of California Foundation hired Barbara Grob Communications & Public Affairs to consult on strategic communications, website redesign and to develop a general brochure. Content focused on public health issues, healthcare system reform and domestic violence prevention.

Global Security

EDK Associates, a New York-based public opinion research firm, hired Barbara Grob Communications & Public Affairs to help conduct opinion leader research on international aid programs for Oxfam America. Detailed interviews and focus groups produced a comprehensive view of the challenges facing humanitarian aid organizations in light of globalization. Leading environmentalists, journalists, clergy, activists and academics contributed to the research.

For the Global Security Institute Barbara Grob helped manage media relations for the group’s annual Alan Cranston Peace Award, given to Rep. Nancy Pelosi by actor Pierce Brosnan in his role as an advocate for GSI. The event raised funding for GSI’s international relations work.

The Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies invited leading Russian foreign policy experts to attend a conference in San Francisco to foster cooperation and dialogue. The high level discussions led to Soviet reaffirmation of an agreement to destroy anti-satellite missiles with U.S. cooperation. Barbara Grob conducted a news conference which generated widespread positive coverage of the meeting and managed press throughout the conference for the American and Soviet participants.