Ron Benza: Helping to End Violence against Women and Children
He’s a former “MadMen” adman who now helps prevent mad men. Once Ron Benza was a hard-charging Madison Avenue advertising executive like the guys in the popular AMC series. He even worked on the M & M’s account, originally won by Rosser Reeves, the model for “MadMen’s” Don Draper and who in real life coined “The Milk Chocolate Melts in Your Mouth Not in Your Hand.”
by Deborah Burstyn-Feature Writer, SF Bay Area Women’s Journal
Ron Benza in his "Mad Men" Days.
In 1993 Benza, the married father of two sons now in college, moved his family to Marin when he took over McCann Erickson’s San Francisco office. Today he’s a founding partner of the print production firm Benza Gruggen Buckley. Clients include those you’ve heard of like Netflix, AT&T, Best Buy, WalMart, and Target and one maybe you haven’t heard of – The Family Violence Prevention Fund.
Ron recently talked with the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Journal about the “meeting that changed his life” and sparked his enduring passion and commitment to end violence against women and children.
The Family Violence Prevention Fund
The Family Violence Prevention Fund has become a force in Benza’s life and led him to co-found, along with Dr. Buz Kanter, Founding Fathers, a group of thousands of prominent men dedicated to ending violence against women and children, under the auspices of the Family Violence Prevention Fund. Benza is also a long standing volunteer for the Family Violence Prevention Fund and serves on the FVPF’s Leadership Committee.
On Exposure:
I had no personal experience with this issue. In 1997 Blue Shield of California was one of our clients at McCann-Erickson. Through Blue Shield I met an incredible person: Esta Soler, the founder of the Family Violence Prevention Fund.
Esta’s my Oprah. That meeting with her changed my life. She helped me see that preventing domestic violence until then had been only women helping women – at shelters, rape crisis centers and so on.
Men were either part of the problem or just bystanders. Though I was not part of the problem, I did not want to be a bystander either. I wanted to be part of the solution.
On Reach:
Ron Benza (r) with Sen. Barbara Boxer at a meeting in advance of passage of the Violence Against Women Act.
The domestic violence procedures that the police and judiciary use today were developed by the Family Violence Prevention Fund. The FVPF was instrumental in the passage of the Violence Against Women Act. They have not only instructed judges throughout the land in correct procedures in violence cases, but the Chairman of the Board of the FVPF is the Honorable Ronald Adrine, a judge himself.
We connect with 15,000 to 20,000 organizations all over the world and produce about a million pieces of print material. We’ve got 100,000 pieces alone going to a Planned Parenthood in the Mt. Shasta area as one example.
Founding Fathers’ program Coaching Boys to Men is even spreading around the world, through out-reach via the UN and other coaching programs.
On the Economy’s Impact on Domestic Violence:
Unemployment, alcoholism and stress are all triggers. They go together like a witches’ brew; things that are borderline get worse.
On a Highlight for 2010:
Nancy Pelosi and Nicole Kidman participated in the ground breaking ceremony for the New Family Violence Prevention Center.
I just went on a hardhat tour of our new building… or new old building. It is a 1910 red brick building in the Presidio, next to the Disney Museum. There’s not a lot you can change on the exterior but the inside will be amazing. It will be home to our new offices and much more-an interactive meeting space, healing center and exhibits.
The Family Violence Prevention Center is going to be a major global conference and education center. It the end it won’t be a place as much as a concept, like the UN is more than a building on the East River. And it is on time and on budget!
On Parenting Boys:
I don’t think boys respond all that well to talking. But your kids are watching you like a hawk and learning from you all the time – how you treat the waiter in a restaurant, how you react when someone cuts you off in traffic. It is important to show by example.
On Inspiration:
“You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better.”
That’s a quote from Maya Angelou. I think she captured the spirit of hope itself. To me it says we don’t have to be saddled with violence as a human condition.
To learn more about The Family Violence Prevention Fund, please visit their website. And you can find additional information about the Founding Father’s Coaching Boys to Men Program here.
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Category: Bay Area Spotlight
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Victor Brown, SF Women's Journal. SF Women's Journal said: Great new Bay Area Man feature on Ron Benza + his work ending violence against women+children! http://ht.ly/1JCxT [...]