It has been nearly 2 years since the INOBTR launch. We have come a long way in this short time and would like to share some of our key accomplishments.

In March 2007, we officially launched INOBTR as a 501c3 non-profit organization focused on Internet Safety education and promoting awareness to children, parents and teachers to reduce the chance of children becoming victims of Internet crimes. It was at this time we announced our PSA campaign with INOBTR celebrity spokesperson Nick Lachey and debuted INOBTR.org our 24-7 online resource destination. Our PSA campaign received amazing support from the community and continues today with billboards on both sides of the state from DDI Media (Chuck Drury), bus shelters from Wall, USA and continued radio play from Emmis Broadcasting. We recently re-launched our website with a new look and feel and encourage you to check it out and post your comments.

That summer and fall, we created and produced two mass impact Internet Safety awareness events at Busch Stadium with the St. Louis Cardinals and across the state at Arrowhead Stadium with the Kansas City Chiefs. Complete with PSAs, Nick Lachey, tip cards and a premium item (St. Louis only); INOBTR impacted more than 100,000 people with our Internet Safety Message.

In September 2007, INOBTR received a $150,000 grant from the State of Missouri, through the Department of Public Safety, to help educate Missouri residents about Internet Safety. The bulk of this grant went towards a program to train law enforcement, school resource officers and community leaders on Internet Safety and give them the tools needed to present this issue in their communities.

To date, this program has trained 141 individuals in 41 different communities across the state of Missouri. And from this training program, INOBTR has developed a speaker’s bureau to fulfill the statewide need to place trainers into the schools and community centers where the need for Internet Safety education exists. In addition to the training program, INOBTR has worked with Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children (MO-ICAC) to develop a tip brochure which is available to all INOBTR trained spokespeople as a leave behind at presentations. The grant for this program has ended, but INOBTR has made a commitment to seek funding to continue to support the speaker’s bureau and provide additional training sessions.

INOBTR continues to work with area youth, encouraging them to take the lead in their communities to help other kids stay safe online. Activities included a busy fall where the team distributed Internet Safety Tips in Halloween treat bags to over 500 children. The INOBTR team also took part in several classroom activities from area schools. The funding for this program has been made possible by a grant from The Dana Brown Charitable Trust.

Over a year ago in December 2007, founder Steve Schankman was honored to speak during the opening ceremonies at the U.S. Department of Justice National Project Safe Childhood Conference held in St. Louis. Project Safe Childhood is a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse. This conference was attended by more than 1500 law enforcement officials from across the country including U.S. Attorneys, FBI, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (otherwise known as ICAC), local and regional law enforcement and many more. INOBTR had a unique opportunity to show this very important and distinguished audience what we were doing to keep kids safe online here in the state of Missouri. It was at this conference, INOBTR was noticed by the Department of Justice.

In early 2008, we received a call non-profit organizations like ours live for – it was the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asking INOBTR to join their dream team, along with Hispanic Communications Network, iKeepSafe Coalition, and Self Reliance Foundation, to create an edgy, out of the box national PSA Campaign to reinforce the incredibly important on-going efforts of Project Safe Childhood. This project resulted in a $700,000 cooperative agreement grant to INOBTR with OJJDP.

Within a few days, the partners were off and running to create a media campaign independently targeting parents AND potential online predators through unique messaging and delivery tactics. This all in an effort to inform and engage the campaign targets in a call to action to protect children from online exploitation. Each of the partners were assigned a target — iKeepSafe Coalition developed the parent campaign entitled “Know Where They Go”, Hispanic Communications Network created/produced both the parent and potential predator campaigns in Spanish and INOBTR was tasked with developing a campaign targeting the potential online predator. While this hasn’t been the organizations primary target since INOBTR’s inception, it has always been a secondary target. And we were up for challenge to illustrate the reality of this crime in a national PSA campaign.

INOBTR’s PSA campaign entitled “Decisions”—is an edgy, out of the box campaign and the first set of PSAs targeting the potential offender. The campaign is comprised of TV, Radio, Print, Web Banners and Movie Theater PSAs and a website at www.stopanonlinepredator.org. Our hope is that this campaign will motivate a predator, potential or not, to stop and think about what they are doing and more importantly the lifetime consequence of this very serious crime. Because enticing a minor online is a federal offense and it will ruin your life! To see this and all the PSAs in the campaign, please go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov.  

In addition to our potential offender campaign and in the spirit of continued awareness, INOBTR plans to produce two large scale events in 2009 with a general Internet Safety awareness message just like the events we have done in Missouri.

After months of work, the partners along with US Department of Justice and OJJDP, announced the nationwide campaign in Washington, DC on November 12, 2008. The result is a multimedia national campaign which includes four TV spots, Movie theater PSAs, radio ads, print work, web banners, websites, and a short film – or webisode – for online video distribution.

Following the launch, the entire PSA campaign had a 2 week run on national cable networks and major online destinations. And in our regional launch cities (Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, St. Louis and Miami), the broadcast PSAs aired in theatres and on radio stations. Moving forward, the partners will work in conjunction with US Attorneys offices across the country to get the campaign PSAs into regular rotation across all mediums.

We continue to be humbled by community support. We know these are tough economic times and appreciate our donors and benefactors. We are especially appreciative of the guidance and support from the Maxine K. Clark and Robert N. Fox Charitable Foundation, The Dana Brown Charitable Trust, and John Beck and Emmis Broadcasting. We would be remiss if we didn’t thank publically Dr. Mark Meyers and Mr. Dan Whyman who lead our Board of Directors.

INOBTR is a non-profit organization that relies on sponsorship, donations and government grants. If you are interested in supporting our efforts see our “Get Involved” page, call 314-721-9090 X208 or simply send a donation to: INOBTR Campaign / 190 Carondelet Plaza, Suite 1111 -/ St. Louis, MO  63105.

We wish for you a happy and healthy 2009 and thank you for doing all that you can to help the ones you love stay safe online.