Delmarva’s call for community leadership: SmartDrive

In Collaboration between Corporations and Nonprofit Organizations, author Joseph Galaskiewicz points out that healthy corporations cannot exist in sick communities, being part of the solution becomes part of a corporate strategy.

The call for community leadership to save teens lives and prevent injuries by teaching better decisions driving skills for Delmarva Broadcasting Company President Pete Booker began on February 20, 2004. That evening three young men were driving home from a high school basketball game. One of them was a friend of Pete’s son for many years. He was a passenger in car in which the driver, travelling at about 70 mph in a 35 mph zone in a residential area, decided to pass another vehicle without noticing that it was preparing to turn left. The other car turned into them and forced them into a tree, killing his son’s friend and another teen. About twenty minutes later on the same evening a young woman, a senior in high school, whom Pete knew a little bit, was also killed when she drove her car into a tree while bending over to pick up her cell phone from the floor of her car.

Annually, 4,166 teens aged 16-19 die in car crashes, that is 11 fatalities daily. In Delaware twenty three teens were killed in 2004. Grief and disbelief that these kids could be gone became resolve to do something about the needless rash of deaths and injuries caused by teen drivers making really bad decisions due to inexperience and immaturity. Pete and others gathered a large group of public safety and driver education professionals together in March of 2004. The result was the creation of SmartDrive, a teen driver education program operated by the nonprofit SmartDrive Foundation, which started operations in the Fall of 2005. Today, SmartDrive is Delmarva’s way of giving back to the community.

The program currently operates in 49 of Delaware’s 54 schools, public and private, and in several schools in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In 2008-2009 approximately 4,800 students participated. In January 2010, SmartDrive expanded into the post-secondary sector with the introduction of “SmartDriveU” at Wilmington University’s multiple campuses.

SmartDrive is a free on-line program where students complete three monthly “modules” that include objective true and false, multiple choice and essay questions presented in an entertaining and challenging multimedia format. Students accumulate points as they complete the various sections. An essential part of this program is active parental involvement with their young drivers, so it is strongly suggested parents participate, and in doing so their children can earn bonus points toward the incentives.

The SmartDrive program is separated into three regions: Northern Delaware, Southern Delaware and a Pennsylvania-Maryland region. The winning student in each region in each school year receives a $4,000 post-secondary scholarship. Other students receive other cash and merchandise prizes. The three schools with the highest percentage of participation in each region will win cash awards to be used for prom-related expenses.

SmartDrive is funded primarily through contributions from a variety of government, corporate and private funding organizations at all levels, as well as individual contributions. There is one full-time paid employee, and one part-time, part-year employee. All others work on a volunteer basis on their own or through time granted by their employers.

Results speak for themselves; SmartDrive is an acknowledged contributor to a coordinated effort that limited teen driving accidents to seven in both 2008 and 2009. Delmarva’s involvement via in-kind support and employees working as volunteers has had an impact in the community. The SmartDrive Foundation is in the process of becoming self-sustainable, not a small achievement in a restricted funding environment.

Delmarva and SmartDrive exemplify a positive and productive interface between nonprofits and businesses as means to giving back to the community; their mission of helping teens make smart driving decisions has already shown positive results.

(Delmarva Broadcasting Company owns and operates eleven radio stations serving Delaware, eastern Maryland, and Southern New Jersey among those stations we find; 93.7 WSTW, 93.7-2 G Graffiti, WDEL 1150 AM, Cool 101.3 FM, and La Exitosa 930 AM. Its coverage assures the continuous delivery of the SmartDrive message to a variety of audiences).