An army for kids: SF nonprofit vows to boost their clout

In a chaotic, hyper-partisan election year, there might be one constituency everybody can agree to rally behind: kids.

The problem, as longtime child advocate Robert Fellmeth put it, is that “while everybody wants to be kissing babies, children are vastly underrepresented.” And ignored. Of the 501 questions moderators asked at the first 10 presidential debates, a Child and Family Policy Center study found that none asked about “the status and well-being” of children.

A well-respected San Francisco nonprofit with national reach — Common Sense Media — hopes to change that Wednesday by launching a campaign to create “a mass army for kids” focusing on children’s issues, starting with the November ballot in California.

While Common Sense founder and CEO Jim Steyer acknowledged that there are many fine organizations working on behalf of children, few pack the kind of grassroots support that can hold a politician accountable for backing up the glowing rhetoric about how children are our future.

Common Sense, which has ballooned from its original mission of providing reviews of TV, movies and video games into creating media literacy education curriculum and other child advocacy ventures, is well positioned to try to make that leap.

“I want to build an AARP for kids,” said Steyer, a longtime children’s advocate. “This is why we started Common Sense Media in the first place — to build an army for kids.”

Money, talent

The Common Sense Kid Campaign plans to raise and spend up to $3 million this year and between $10 million and $15 million over the next five years to mass that army of advocates in California. Formed under the Common Sense Kids Action advocacy arm, the campaign will be nonpartisan — “kid-partisan,” Steyer insists — and doesn’t plan on getting involved in candidate races.

Another advantage that this effort will have over other children advocacy groups is that it will be staffed by A-list political talent. It includes Buffy Wicks, a former top campaign and White House adviser to President Obama, who will direct the California campaign; Joel Benenson, Hillary Clinton’s pollster and campaign strategist; and Liz Lowery, a former deputy national finance director for Obama for America.

It will likely get involved in backing two initiatives potentially headed toward the November ballot: one to extend Proposition 30 — which taxes wealthier Californians and channels the money to schools — and one that would raise the tax on cigarettes by $2 a pack.

But Steyer envisions this as more than an election-year sprint. He wants to build a long-term advocacy movement. His fellow children’s advocates welcome the help.

Underrepresented

In a study using 2008 figures, the Child and Family Policy Center found that the amount of federal lobbying done by the top national child advocacy organizations (including the Children’s Defense Fund; First Focus; Every Child Matters; Fight Crime: Invest in Kids; and Voices for America’s Children) totaled less than $1 million. AARP, which advocates for older adults, spent more than 20 times that on lobbying federal legislators.

“The balance of power is grossly in favor of trade associations and business associations and seniors,” said Fellmeth, executive director of Children’s Advocacy Institute and a law professor at the University of San Diego.

Fundraising power

There is little doubt that Steyer and his team can raise money to close that gap. He has nurtured Common Sense from its founding in 2002 into an organization with an annual budget of $25 million and a board of directors filled with deep-pocketed media company executives and financiers. It has partnered with cable networks and top digital media companies and knows the media-advocacy landscape well.

And while other organizations may have to start from scratch to build a grassroots network, Common Sense has built a trusted brand name over 14 years by developing a ratings guide that isn’t based on religious or political dogma like many others. Now 62 million people worldwide use its content, and more than 107,000 schools are using its curriculum.

Another leading-edge twist is that the campaign will bring in 20 people around the state as grassroots organizers. Each will be paid a stipend of $1,000 a month and be held responsible for meeting different metrics of success, Wicks said. The program will be modeled on how the Obama campaign built one of the nation’s most successful grassroots operations.

If it works in California this year, Common Sense plans to replicate it in other states in 2017.

“It is about giving people — parents and others — the ability to tell their stories,” Wicks said.

Steyer was adamant that the army he was building was not in support of his brother Tom Steyer, the former San Francisco hedge-fund manager and environmentalist who is often mentioned as a possible 2018 candidate for California governor. Tom Steyer is the co-chairman of the campaign that is supporting the proposed tobacco-tax ballot measure.

Not about candidacy

And this effort is not attempting to replicate the way former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocated for Proposition 49, an after-school program in 2002, and eventually used it as a springboard to his own gubernatorial run.

“I love my brother, and he’s my best friend,” Jim Steyer said. “This has nothing to do with my brother’s political career or my political career. I’m aware that people are going to speculate about my brother’s political future. But this is about a building an army for kids.”

That army is needed and welcomed, said Alex Johnson, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund-California.

“When you look at the landscape of children’s advocates, this is value added,” Johnson said. “It will help to move the agenda forward.”