As racial injustice and police brutality took center stage this past year, we saw the industry publicize support for the BLM movement and their BIPOC employees. Like other agencies, we posted support on social, shared DE&I commitments, and a statement of accountability. But that wasn't enough. We have cultivated a community of makers and innovators who believe in leveraging the power of creativity for positive change. We saw it as our opportunity and responsibility to demonstrate how we evolve from performative allyship to true accomplice.

We set out to create a compelling solution that engaged users in the movement to end police brutality. The internal brief was simple and bold - change the role of police in our society and redirect resources to build stronger, healthier communities.

The Washington Post has noted nearly 250 women, including 48 Black women, have been shot and killed by police since the newspaper began tracking police-involved shootings in 2015. Every year, billions of taxpayer dollars are used to fund policing in America, contributing to the tremendous power of law enforcement. We have come to over rely on police, turning to them as the only solution for public safety. Despite decades of reform, police violence continues to escalate and disproportionately impacts communities of color. As racial injustice and police brutality took center stage this past year with the killing of George Floyd, “defunding the police” as a rallying cry began to gain mainstream momentum. For those who understood the demand, it was clear that “defunding the police” is the strategy and reinvestment into community-driven safety alternatives is the goal. While most people support the notion of investing in community initiatives, “Defund the Police” as a call to action has left many feeling uncertain. The challenge is, people focused only on “taking away” and missed out entirely on the goal, which is to reinvest.

It was clear that conversations around progress and solutions come to a halt whenever “defund the police” is mentioned. The polarization of this phrase has contributed to the uphill battle to gaining critical mass support in reducing police power and increasing community investment.

At its core, “Defund to Refund'' tells the full story by capturing both the strategy (to defund the police) and the goal (to reinvest in communities). It was important for us to not water down the activist’s demand to defund, but to build upon it. With an issue as complex as reshaping the role of police in America, we knew we had to connect with both the hearts and minds of our audience. As such, we created this platform and brought it to life through a story-based digital experience that combines real stories of over-policing with original artwork by Black artists, simplified budget reinvestments & contextualized calls to action to amplify support for redirecting resources to build safer, healthier communities.

According to a Reuters/IPSOS poll conducted in June 2020, only 28% of Americans supported the “defund the police” movement or “defunding police departments”. However, when the same poll queried people about “proposals to move money currently going to police budgets into better officer training, local programs for homelessness, mental health assistance, and domestic violence”, 76% of people supported the proposal. This signaled that support for the movement is there, even if the slogan didn’t resonate. So we focused our efforts on the 76% of people we called “the moveable middle” and set out to provide tools, resources and language to empower them to be advocates for the movement.

Police brutality is a highly emotional issue while budget reinvestments can seem daunting and plain boring. To break through, we married emotional storytelling with simplified budget reinvestment to connect with both the hearts and minds of our target audience.

The Defund to Refund digital platform launched on February 22, 2021, along with the initiative’s Instagram and Twitter. The launch was largely an organic effort via social amplification across Twitter, IG and Linkedin. For launch week, our team put together a moderated Art & Activism where we invited our artist collaborators to join for a conversation about the movement and their process. In the same week, we had an exclusive story with Adweek, followed by a feature in Blavity News. Both media stories covered our initiative through the lens of how we are reframing the conversation around “defunding the police.”

We intend to expand and scale this platform beyond this initial digital experience, and are in active conversations with industry supporters and activists to build on the storytelling and create tools & resources for communities that need it.

Since launch in late February, our site has 6000+ page views driven mostly by organic traffic. We’ve garnered 106K+ impressions in the first 30 days via social and over 500+ referrals on Linkedin.

Aside from visibility for the platform, we wanted this initiative to be an example for the Ad industry of how we transcend allyship into true accomplice. So far, the industry has responded positively with an outpour of support, including internal communications from TBWA/Chiat/Day calling our initiative one “that leverages creative powers for good…”

We also want “defund to refund” to be adopted into the lexicons for the movement to reshape the role of police in America. We are already seeing our language of “defund to refund” starting to be used in the context of community organizing like Maryland’s Communities United petition to the Mayor on 3/20/21.