The Manoff Group (TMG) was acquired by JSI in October 2022. Our team and our passion remain for bringing evidence-based, innovative insights and solutions to social and behavior change challenges. JSI’s Behavior Initiative offers a welcoming home for our 55 years of experience and thought leadership and an opportunity to elevate and expand our signature Behavior Integration approach, novel methods and tools, and effective communication programming.
Our Story
In the mid-1960s, Richard “Dick” Manoff, the head of a successful New York-based advertising agency, was appointed to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). As he thought about the challenges facing FAO — particularly in the field of nutrition — Dick Manoff suggested for the first time that commercial marketing techniques could be effectively used to address behavior change needs in public health programs. With this idea in mind, he founded Manoff International in 1967 as the world’s first social marketing firm. In 1988, Marcia Griffiths took helm of the newly-named Manoff Group.
Our Leadership
Manoff Group president Marcia Griffiths is known for her fieldwork, technical expertise, and innovative programming in applied nutrition, particularly in her work promoting healthy child growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She has served as an advisor on individual level behavior change for numerous USAID, World Bank, and government programs and projects, supporting strategy development, program design, planning, implementation, qualitative research, and the use of a host of communication methods. Marcia is a pioneer of the Behavior-Centered Programming approach, as well as the Trials of Improved Practices (TIPs) technique for testing behaviors before they are promoted in programs.
Our People
The Manoff Group’s experienced staff includes experts in behavior change, anthropology, public health, nutrition, agriculture and KM. Approximately half of our staff members are locally hired professionals working on programs in their home countries. We are a passionate group that is motivated to solve problems in health, nutrition, family planning, HIV/AIDS, and the environment.