Foster SF Campaign: Keep San Francisco Kids in San Francisco

The Challenge

Too many foster kids in San Francisco were being sent out of the city. Not because people didn’t care. Because there weren’t enough foster homes. When placements couldn’t be found locally, kids were moved away from everything familiar — their schools, their friends, their communities. Foster SF needed to change that.

The problem wasn’t just awareness. If people didn’t see these kids as part of their own neighborhoods, they wouldn’t step in to help keep them there.

The Strategy

We made it hyper-local. Instead of talking about foster care as a citywide issue, we went neighborhood by neighborhood and made it personal.

These Mission kids. Sunset kids. Bayview kids. The campaign reframed the issue around a simple idea:

You Can Foster SF

By grounding the message in the city, the work turned foster care into something people could see, feel, and take responsibility for.

Creative Platform

“You can Foster SF.”

The platform connected identity to geography. Each execution localized the message, tying foster youth directly to the neighborhoods people recognize as their own. And it countered all the excuses like too small a house, not enough monoey, not married etc.

Execution

Neighborhood-Targeted Out-of-Home

We deployed billboards, posters, and transit placements across San Francisco, tailoring messaging to specific neighborhoods. Each placement spoke directly to the people who live there, reinforcing that foster care isn’t happening somewhere else. It’s happening right here. The work met people in their own environments and asked them to act locally.

LOCAL TV AND DIGITAL VIDEO

We told real stories of local people who stepped up and became foster parents. The localized approach made the content feel relevant and worth paying attention to, not scrolling past.

Results

We doubled our expected inquiries, increased our foster pool and got tons of volunteers. The campaign increased engagement across San Francisco and drove more people to the website to explore fostering locally. SFHSA does not share specific details but we worked with them for multiple years on multiple campaigns so the work worked.

Why It Worked

People protect what they feel connected to. By localizing the issue, the campaign turned foster care from something abstract into something immediate. It wasn’t about helping “foster kids.” It was about helping kids from your neighborhood. And that changes how people respond.

About Division of Labor

Division of Labor is a San Francisco advertising agency specializing in campaigns that change perception and drive action. We help organizations turn complex social issues into clear, human messages that people can understand and act on. Foster SF partnered with Division of Labor to make foster care local and make action feel personal.

Overview

Foster SF partnered with Division of Labor to launch a neighborhood-focused campaign addressing the need for local foster homes in San Francisco. By reframing foster youth as members of specific communities and encouraging residents to “Foster SF” the work increased awareness, drove engagement, and helped shift responsibility from citywide to neighborhood-level action.