On September 2nd, Texas Governor Greg Abbott made the case for the most restrictive abortion law on CNBC.

NPR followed up in a separate report, noting that few businesses were challenging this new law.

For our agency this was unacceptable. We offered our Texas staff $10,000 if they wanted to relocate.

O’Dwyer’s wrote: “Bospar leads the way for PR firms dealing with the fallout of the Texas abortion ban, which may trigger a flight of young PR talent from the state… Bospar announced its plan Sept. 9, a day ahead of a similar plan by Salesforce."

Senate Bill 8 in Texas bans abortions six weeks from a woman’s last period.

Patients can’t be sued, but anyone who aids the abortion can be sued by almost anyone - even those from out of state.

If plaintiffs succeed, they can collect $10,000 and their legal fees from those they sue.

If they lose, they do not have to pay the defendants’ legal costs.

For our PR agency, this was unacceptable.

No company was challenging this law in the court of public opinion.

Governor Abbott was crowing about this law being good for business.

And most importantly it was unacceptable for 10% of our workforce who are based in Texas.

We had to act: create a program that helps our employees impacted by the Texas Abortion Ban; make the case that the abortion ban is bad for business; and inspire other companies that have been reluctant to speak up.

We determined that the average relocation expense was $5,000 to $10,000.

We consulted our HR and legal teams, determining we would offer this to our Texas employees, male and female, with no questions asked. We added that should any other state enact similar legislation we would offer the same benefit. We codified the new benefit in our employee handbook.

There was a palpable hunger for any company to talk about how they would respond to this law and plenty of research that showed the law would hurt Texas. Governor Abbott already dismissed the Forbes’ data. But a recent PerryUndem poll of 1,804 adults with college degrees discovered 64% of adults 18 to 64 wouldn’t apply for a job in a state that passed an abortion ban like Texas.

We determined that positioning this bill as an existential threat to Texas’ business future could get lawmakers’ attention.

Let’s put it in perspective: we are talking about helping six people leave Texas, a state with a population of over 29 million. How could this possibly be significant?

We landed on this message that highlighted our agency as one of the pioneers of a national work-from-home model before COVID-19 made it the norm: “This isn’t about politics or ethics. This is just good business sense, especially since nearly 80% of our staff are women. Selfishly, we want to retain and attract the best workforce imaginable. We also want to leverage our completely virtual model to its full advantage, making clear that our staff can work anywhere they want.”

We played on the rivalry between Texas and our agency’s “home state” of California and positioned the agency head Curtis Sparrer, from Texas and living in San Francisco, visible on LGBTQ rights and of interest to Texas media.

On September 7th, we offered the Dallas Morning News an exclusive provided it would make our agency the story lead. Published September 9th: “California PR firm will pay for its six Texas employees to relocate following abortion law.”

CBS SF Bay Area did multiple on-air and online reports: “...principal Curtis Sparrer said he was ‘personally attached’ to the response to the Texas law, being a native Texan who grew up gay and ‘experienced first-hand the power of Texas legislators who wanted to determine how I lived my life.’”

ABC 7 News congratulated Curtis for getting into “good trouble.”

Telemundo interviewed Account Manager Alisha Alvarez in Spanish.

Austin’s KVUE quoted Curtis on the brain-drain potential.

Fast Company, Politico and Fortune highlighted Bospar’s initiative and 64 outlets covered our story.

Objective: Create a program that helps our employees impacted by the Texas Abortion Ban;

Account Manager Emily Roberts wrote: “Wow. I have never worked for a company that doesn’t just talk the talk.”

Account Executive Grant Zehnder: “Thank you leadership for taking a stand as an agency – paving the way for others to follow suit!”

Objective: Make the case that the abortion ban is bad for business;

The Dallas Morning News featured data showing college graduates wouldn’t apply for a job in a state that passed an abortion ban like Texas.

KVUE and other Texas media outlets focused on our Texas staff’s prediction that more people in their 20’s and 30’s would be leaving the state.

Objective: Inspire other companies.

Chris Matyszczyk of ZDNet’s Technically Incorrect emailed us that Salesforce offered to relocate their employees. We wrote back: “We did it first.” He responded: “...Perhaps they heard about you.”