Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility (Responsibility.org[1]), formerly known as the Century Council, is an American not-for-profit organization founded in 1991 and funded by a group of America's leading distillers that aims to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking and promotes responsible decision-making regarding alcohol use by adults who choose to drink.
The Washington, D.C. based organization is an independent national advisory board with members in the realm of education, medicine, government, business, and other relevant disciplines who assist in the development of programs, initiatives, and policies.[2][3] The organization is also supported by educational and judicial advisory boards whose members contribute their professional expertise to help shape programming that aligns with their respective fields.[4][5]
Responsibility.org’s website includes a map that offers up-to-date state statistics and laws on the topics of underage drinking and drunk and impaired driving in the United States.[12][13][14] The website also includes tips for drinking and hosting responsibly, conversation starters for parents[15] and resources for policymakers that include policy recommendations, and different checklists, including a DUID checklist and another with practical suggestions on how to implement responsible alcohol laws that fit a community.[13][16][17][18]
Programs and initiatives
Responsibility.orgworks with law enforcement, public officials, educators, parents and students to create resources and materials aimed at drunk driving prevention and underage drinking prevention, and alcohol education, including promoting responsible decision making around alcohol consumption:
Alcohol 101+. is an interactive online program which aims to help students make safe and responsible decisions about alcohol on college campuses.[19][20][21] The program aims to equip students with knowledge and understanding about the impacts of alcohol, to mitigate risks, and embrace healthy decision making.[21]
Ask, Listen, Learn: Kids and Alcohol Don't Mix. A free program targeted at kids ages 9-13 and their parents and educators, to give kids the skills and information needed to say “NO” to underage drinking and underage cannabis use.[22][23] The program provides free materials and resources, including lesson plans, that encourage parents and teachers to engage in ongoing dialogue about the dangers of underage drinking with kids using science-based research about how the developing brain works.[23][24] It is the most widely-distributed underage drinking prevention program of its kind.[24]
B4UDrink Educator aims to educate adults about the influence of alcohol on an individual's blood alcohol content (BAC) level.
Cops in Shops is an alcohol law enforcement program in which undercover police officers work with participating alcoholic beverage retailers with the aim to deter youth under 21 from attempting to purchase alcohol or adults that purchase alcohol for minors.[25][26][27]
Computerized Assessment and Referral System (CARS). CARS was created by Responsibility.org and Harvard University’s Cambridge Health Alliance Division on Addiction.[28][29] CARS is designed to be used to screen and assess impaired drivers for substance abuse and mental health disorders. The goal is to help inform judges of an offender's treatment needs and hopefully reduce recidivism.[30] The system is made available for use by judicial systems.[30]
Girl Talk: Choices and Consequences of Underage Drinking attempts to encourage mothers and daughters to communicate about the dangers of underage drinking and the specific risks facing teenage girls.[31][32]
Grants. Responsibility.org, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), and the National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving (NASID) provide grants to various entities and organizations to support impaired driving prevention.[33] This includes grants to states for training programs that support the detection and prevention of drug-impaired driving.[34] Since 2014, Responsibility.org has awarded more than $1.1 million to State Highway Offices across the United States.[34]
I Know Everything. A program to encourage parents to talk to their teenagers and share safe driving tips.[35][36]
National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving (NASID). Responsibility.org established and leads the NASID coalition.[37] It is dedicated to eliminating all impaired driving, including multiple substance impaired driving.[37]
National Hardcore Drunk Driving Project provides a comprehensive resource for state legislators, local policy makers, highway safety officials, law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors, community advocates, and treatment professionals to effectively deal with hardcore drunk drivers.
Responsibility Starts with Me. A campaign that highlights everyday people who share their perspectives on the importance of responsible decision making in their everyday lives.[38]
SoberRide. The SoberRide program offers free Lyft rides during certain holiday time periods to adults in the Greater Washington area.[39][40] The program is offered by Washington Regional Alcohol Program (WRAP), and Responsibility.org is one of the program’s sponsors.[40]
Virtual Bar. A free, educational website and mobile app that supports responsible drinking by showing how little alcohol may be required to reach legal driving limits.[41][18][42][43] The tool allows adults to plug in detailed factors about themselves such as age, height, weight, gender (assigned at birth), and their plans for the night, including what they plan to eat and drink- so they can understand how those factors will affect their body’s blood alcohol content (BAC), and when their BAC will return to 0.0.[41][42][43][18]
We Don't Serve Teens A public awareness campaign designed to prevent teen drinking by informing adults that providing underage drinkers with alcohol is unsafe, illegal and irresponsible.[44][45] The campaign first debuted in 2006 in partnership with the Federal Trade Commission, but has run multiple times; in 2022, it ran with the slogan, “Nothing Justifies Underage Drinking.”[46] Responsibility.org promoted the campaign through a website (WeDontServeTeens.org), exhibit booths, logos, badges, posters, and social media.[46]
Wrong Side of the Road. This is a free series of videos designed for 21-to 35-year-olds to educate them about the dangers of impaired driving, with real-life experience and consequences shared through the eyes of past drunk drivers.[47] This demographic is at high risk of DUI crashes and deaths.[47] The global program was developed by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Diageo, and implemented in the United States by Responsibility.org.[47]
Responsibility.org launched Think Responsibly, a campaign directed to millennial adults of legal purchase age who choose to drink, in partnership with Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) at the wholesalers' 76th annual convention in Orlando in 2019.[49][50]
As part of the campaign, Think Responsibly ads asked visitors to take a quiz on responsible drinking. The quiz and online messages were measured by a Facebook Brand Lift Survey to determine how well the campaign increases a millennial's intention to drink responsibly.[49][50]
Visuals with strong "calls to action" reached 4.8 million urban millennials on Facebook and Instagram. The brand lift study revealed the ads raised interest in and consideration of Think Responsibly, garnering a 1.3 point lift in ad recall of Responsibility.org among those who saw to the campaign.
Partners
Responsibility.org’s industry collaboration comes from partnering with organizations, law enforcement, parents, educators, and others in support of its mission to eliminate drunk driving, impaired driving, and underage drinking, and to promote responsible alcohol choices. A few of these partners have included:
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA)[51]
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