June 4, 2018 | Read Time: 3 minutes
The Truth Initiative, a nonprofit credited with dramatically reducing cigarette use, was honored today by a group of nonprofit communications professionals for effectively spreading an antismoking message in the face of well-funded public-relations campaigns waged by the tobacco industry.
The advocacy group was picked over 11 other applicants for the inaugural Clarence B. Jones Impact Award, given by the Communications Network.
The antismoking group’s predecessor, the American Legacy Foundation, was created in 1998 with settlement money from a long-running legal dispute between tobacco companies and attorneys general from across the country.
In 2013, the nonprofit decided to recast itself by changing its name, ditching much of its fundraising staff and bringing in Robin Koval, an advertising-industry veteran to serve as president and hone the group’s message.
Koval ignited the group’s social-media efforts, encouraging young people to spread the message that smoking isn’t hip. The group has specialized in producing edgy videos that pit rebellious youths against stodgy, lying corporations.
The advertising industry has bestowed numerous awards on the effort. Koval said that the Jones award and the praise the group has received from nonprofit peers is especially meaningful because it highlights more than just the damaging health effects of smoking.
“Smoking is not just a public-health issue, it’s a social-justice issue,” she said. “The tobacco industry for years has preyed upon people with lower incomes, people with less education, and on minorities.”
Showing Results
Since the group was created, smoking among high-school students has dropped from 23 percent to 6 percent. According to a longitudinal survey supported by the Truth Initiative, the group has built strong brand awareness among young people. More than three-quarters of people ages 15 to 21 can recall a Truth advertisement. According to research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the group’s work prevented 300,000 people from lighting up in a single year.
That success was one of the biggest reasons the Communications Network’s judges picked the Truth Initiative. The judges included Jesse Salazar, the group’s chairman, and communications leaders at the California Wellness, Case, Ford and Hewlett foundations; the Healing Trust; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Salazar said the judges were looking for organizations and individuals whose work had made a clear impact on a significant issue and demonstrated leadership and an ability to innovate. The Truth Initiative, he said, has been effective because it helped unleash the voices of young people.
“Instead of exposing people to what happens with smoking, they activate youth to be ambassadors for their message,” Salazar said. “That shift of their posture from exposing to activating is really remarkable.”
‘Wake-Up Call’
The award was underwritten by the Heinz Endowments, which has committed $50,000 a year for three years to administer and publicize the program. Grant Oliphant, the philanthropy’s president, said the award is not simply a recognition of good work — it is a “wake-up call” to nonprofits that have run mediocre communications efforts.
Foundations and nonprofits have long had a “naïve” expectation that presenting data on social and environmental issues will help drive public opinion, he said.
That attitude is insufficient during a time when political rhetoric, Oliphant said, is “eroding trust in facts, eroding trust in science, and eroding trust in the notion that authority and expertise matter.”
The award is named for Clarence Jones, who served as a lawyer and speechwriter for Martin Luther King.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the source of the estimate that the Truth Initiative had prevented 300,000 people from smoking in a single year.
