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Fear Lurks in Boys & Girls Clubs Ad

A new commercial from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America hints at dangers that could face children after school.

ENLISTING celebrities for public service announcements can be a challenge for nonprofits, but the Boys & Girls Clubs of America makes it look like child’s play.

In a commercial directed pro bono by Ron Howard in 2011, for example, 21 club alumni appeared, including Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lopez, Gen. Wesley Clark, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Martin Sheen. But in a new commercial, the 154-year-old organization neither lines up celebrities nor, as it has also typically done in the past, shows young people happily using its facilities.

The spot opens with a shot of a clock in a school that strikes 3, setting off bells throughout the school. Students spill into the halls and out the front doors.

“It’s 3 p.m. — for 50 million kids across America, school’s out,” Mr. Washington says in a voice-over. “For a third of these kids, they’re out on their own, out with nowhere to go, out with nothing to do, out all afternoon when anything can happen.”

Children representing a range of ages and ethnicities are depicted in situations that hint at danger without showing them harmed, like two girls walking down an alley who are beckoned by a creepy-looking man as police sirens wail in the distance; two boys tossing a backpack over a fence and scaling it; and a young boy playing on railroad tracks, unfazed by a train horn.

“But every afternoon is a chance to change America’s future,” Mr. Washington says as a girl arrives at the door of a club and looks with interest at other children gathered inside at tables and playing table tennis. “All you have to do is open the door. It’s time to support the Boys & Girls Clubs. Great futures start here.”

An end card promotes a fund-raising website, GreatFutures.org. The campaign, which includes digital, print and out-of-home advertising, is by the Los Angeles office of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, part of MDC Partners. The spot is directed by Rodrigo Prieto, cinematographer for “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Argo.”

While the campaign is relying entirely on donated advertising placements, the organization says it already has commitments to run the commercial broadly from networks including NBC, ABC and ESPN. The campaign will be introduced in an event in Times Square on Thursday at 3 p.m. — the critical time when many schools dismiss students.

Many cubicle dwellers will be introduced to the effort at 3 p.m. Thursday, too. More than 60 websites, including Pandora, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, have agreed to run digital ads for the effort when the clock strikes 3, with some sites actually sounding a bell. Simultaneously, many celebrity supporters of the group, like Ms. Lopez and LeBron James, will send out messages to their social network followers.

Evan McElroy, chief communications officer for Boys & Girls Clubs, which is based in Atlanta, said that such celebrity assistance was invaluable, but that the organization had determined that for the new campaign, a noncelebrity approach would resonate best with prospective donors.

“It’s great to have the testimony of people who have succeeded, and that’s part of our strategy,” Mr. McElroy said. “But we’ve got to bring a higher sense of urgency to educating people that during nonschool hours, when kids are not at home and they’re not in school, what a difference it can make when they’re in a safe, structured, supervised environment.”

Sue Anderson, executive creative director for the Los Angeles office of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, said that because the organization tends to proactively keep children away from troubled situations rather than rescue them from peril, attracting donors can be tricky.

“They have a unique problem in that they do amazing, amazing work,” Ms. Anderson said, “but because they essentially are keeping children happy and well looked-after, there’s no sense of urgency to people donating.”

While the commercial actually stops at the door to a club, the print component goes inside and shows children engaged in activities. Though many people associate Boys & Girls Clubs with sports and art projects, the print ads highlight children doing things like learning the guitar, being tutored and building a robot.

“Some of the baggage that the Boys & Girls Clubs has is that people think that it is just a ‘swim and gym’ place,” Ms. Anderson said, using the organization’s shorthand for the limited perception many have of its mission and activities.

Joe Waters, the author of “Fundraising With Businesses,” reviewed the new commercial and liked the approach.

“A lot of times you think of Boys & Girls Clubs as a place to go, but we don’t really think of why do kids have to go there,” he said. “And they have to go there because the alternative is really kind of scary and threatening, like some of the things they show in that commercial.”

While Mr. Waters lauded the organization, he said it had not done as well as nonprofits like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at “pulling at people’s heartstrings,” but called the new commercial a step in the right direction. “What we’re learning as nonprofits,” he said, “is that we all have to be ratcheting up the emotional appeal.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Fear Lurks in Boys & Girls Clubs Ad. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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