ISO: A Breakthrough Advertising Campaign
PGPF is seeking to engage an advertising team for a substantial national education campaign in late 2008 and early 2009. We are particularly interested in proposals that: use creativity to break the mold of tired old advocacy and advertising efforts; productively blend different forms of media (television, online, print, etc.) to take advantage of each medium's unique advantages and to create a synergistic effect; and educate and inspire young audiences most of all, because it's their future that is imperiled. For more details on what we're looking for, please refer to the RFP.
We have two goals for this effort:
1) To inspire open and honest public debate about the nation's $53 trillion problem. That's the sum of all the government's current financial obligations including unfunded promises for Social Security and Medicare. Per household, that's a $455,000 bill. Balancing the budget and eliminating our record-high deficit would be a welcome step, but would not be enough to solve this problem. Nor would eliminating pork-barrel spending and government waste, rolling back the Bush tax cuts, and ending the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That too would get us only a fraction of the way there. Major reforms to our existing entitlement, health care, and tax systems are going to be required to change our current fiscal path - and soon. Without them, taxes will have to more than double over the next few decades in order for the government to pay its bills and deliver on its promises.
2) To encourage the creation of a bipartisan commission to undertake a review of the government's entitlement, health care, and tax systems and offer a series of recommendations which will receive an up-or-down vote in both houses of Congress, similar to the military base-closure commission. Supporting a commission whose findings are guaranteed to become public and come up for a vote on the House and Senate floor would be the second step toward digging us out of our $53 trillion hole.
PGPF is a nonpartisan philanthropy dedicated to increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of several key challenges threatening America's future, and to accelerating action on them. In the near term, we are focusing on the challenges posed to the nation's fiscal health. PGPF's public education campaign, like all its efforts, complies with the laws governing private foundations.
For more details on the effort and to submit a proposal, please refer to this RFP (PDF download).
