Why Are You Guys Always Asking for Money?

“Fisher, why are you guys always asking for money?”

Whether it’s in an email, in person, at a Human Coalition event, or on the phone, I am asked that question somewhat frequently. Since we are in the middle of an email fundraising campaign, I figured now would be as good a time as any to answer it.

This question is oftentimes asked with some measure of annoyance, and I can understand that emotion. We live in a culture where we no longer answer the door because someone may intrude on our family time to ask for money. We barely glance at the overwhelming amount of mail in our mailbox because we can’t afford to support all of the politicians who want a donation. Even email, which only a few years ago was a new and novel way to communicate, has become banal. Our favorite button on the keyboard is delete.

So while Human Coalition is deeply focused on its mission (we will rescue over 1,500 children and families from abortion-determined situations this year), provides a host of wonderful resources for a growing pro-life community, provides healing opportunities for those who suffer after an abortion, and celebrates human life whenever and wherever we can, none of this would be possible without the generous giving of tens and, eventually, hundreds of thousands of life-loving people all over the country.

While we work to end legalized abortion in America, we regularly ask those who have resources to prayerfully consider donating. Here’s why:

1. Human Coalition is an abortion-ending nonprofit ministry with comprehensive solutions. We currently operate six divisions, all of which work in tandem to drive abortion out of key cities. Our marketing outreach team, Contact Center, women’s care clinics and life-affirming pregnancy center relationships, Continuum of Care program, church outreach team, and legal team, work in unity to make abortion unthinkable and unavailable.

2. Every service we offer to broken, hurting, and most likely abandoned pregnant women is free. Whether it’s an ultrasound, our new Continuum of Care program (where we provide women and men access to extended, comprehensive care), material support, peer counseling, access to pro-life medical care, or a host of other tangible needs, we never charge a person for anything. It’s our ministry. And we can’t provide any of these services without the generous giving of people who have more than our clients do.

3. Human Coalition uses the most advanced Internet and in-house technologies to reach and minister to abortion-determined women. Though we often receive a nonprofit discount when purchasing software, we’re using technology that many Fortune 500 companies haven’t yet adopted. Whether it’s the software that runs our efforts to reach abortion-determined women online, our high-tech in-house Contact Center’s software, the robust programs on which we do data modeling, or the app that allows you to pray for abortion-determined women and men in real time, Human Coalition is committed to using best-in-class tools to give us every advantage to rescue a child from death in the womb.

4. It’s not always easy or cheap to reach an abortion-determined woman or man. “Abortion-determined” means a person has already made up their mind to abort, or someone else is coercing them to do so. I talked with one of our Contact Center agents this week. She’d just received a phone call from a woman who was so desperate to abort her preborn baby, she was going to have her 10-year-old child jump on her stomach until she aborted. The abortion-determined community is underserved in America, and it can be costly to reach them. Meanwhile, the abortion industry is paying millions of dollars to try to reach them as well. It’s a very competitive situation.

5. Our methods for rescuing children and families from abortion are becoming more and more effective and efficient. This August, we rescued 50% more children than we did during the previous August. We’ve seen a 32% increase in babies saved year to date over last year. And although we work with 34 pro-life pregnancy centers across the country and own and operate five of our own, we’re actually working with FEWER facilities this year than we did last year.

6. Human Coalition receives no government funding. We are 100% funded by individuals, churches, and businesses that want to end abortion. We are entirely dependent on the generosity of committed pro-life people to do our work.

7. We are expanding. I will share more information about this in a month or so, but Human Coalition is expanding its own network of five women’s care clinics during the fourth quarter of 2016. We plan to close out the year with seven women’s care clinics, and one of them will be located in one of the top 10 abortion-riddled cities in the nation. As the Lord continues to provide the necessary resources, we will continue expanding our reach to rescue more and more babies and families.

8. Ending abortion should be at the top of a Christian’s list of priorities. Whether you support Human Coalition or some other pro-life group, and whether you support us through your dollars, by volunteering, or through prayer, anyone who calls them self a follower of Christ needs to be doing something.

I’m not Catholic, but I read a fair amount of Catholic writings on pro-life issues. Archbishop Chaput recently gave a speech at Notre Dame, and he made the following comments about abortion versus other worthy causes:

“In every abortion, an innocent life always dies. This is why no equivalence can ever exist between the intentional killing involved in abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia on the one hand, and issues like homelessness, the death penalty, and anti-poverty on the other. Again, all of these issues are important. But trying to reason or imply them into having the same moral weight is a debasement of Christian thought.”

I’ve talked with Christians who claim abortion “just isn’t their issue.” Yes, it is. Perhaps they just don’t know it, don’t want to recognize it, or have never dealt with it. However, we’ve lost one-sixth of the United States population to abortion since it was legalized in 1973. It is the worst holocaust in American history, and it has inflicted an untold number of other social ills on our nation. It is literally ruining the fabric of the American family. Ending abortion is not the job of the federal government or the courts. It is the job of the Church—primarily American Christian men.

9. Giving is an act of worship. That’s why I don’t feel bad or guilty about asking people to financially support Human Coalition.

First, what we have isn’t actually ours. We are simply stewards of what God has given to us. How we handle our money is the primary way we show our spiritual maturity. The Bible has over 500 verses about prayer. It has over 2,000 verses about money. When I ask an audience to support our work, I am giving them an opportunity to have a conversation with their Creator about how to give what God generously gave to them. Every time we donate to a Christian cause, we are showing our Savior that we don’t cling too tightly to our earthly existence, and we are supple enough to respond to what He wants us to do with His resources.

Second, just because we ask for financial support, that doesn’t mean everyone can, will, or should donate. I often receive emails and notes from people who can’t afford to support us. They are always apologetic—unnecessarily. If you genuinely can’t afford to give, are already giving to other pro-life organizations, or want to give sometime in the future, that’s awesome. Just get involved in some other way. Pray, volunteer, wear out your politicians’ phone lines and email inboxes—do whatever you can. Ending legalized abortion in America is not a pipe dream. It is entirely possible. But we need hundreds of thousands of people to get involved, financially and otherwise.

10. The pro-life effort is profoundly underfunded. Consider the fact that the country’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has an annual budget of over $1.2 billion, and they killed over 330,000 preborn children last year. The pro-life movement, by contrast, includes at least 4,000 different organizations. (I’m not aware of anyone who has counted them all.) And yet, by anyone’s best estimates, the total amount of giving to ALL pro-life organizations is around $500-700 million. In other words, the country’s largest abortion provider is twice the size of the entire pro-life movement.

Human Coalition has grown at a rapid pace over the last five years. In 2011, we had an $80,000 budget. We will end 2016 somewhere around $8.5 million. Though Human Coalition is probably one of the top three pro-life organizations in the country, our budget is still just .7% of Planned Parenthood’s.

There are roughly 60 million philanthropic adults in the United States who agree with the pro-life worldview. Yet only 10.2 million of them give financially to any pro-life organization, and their annual giving is between $50 and $75. In other words, most pro-life people don’t financially support any effort to end abortion; and those of us who do, don’t sacrificially give to get the job done.

We can do better.

To those of you who sacrificially give of your finances, time, energy, and/or support to a pro-life organization, thank you! For the millions more who believe abortion is morally wrong yet don’t do the work to support that view, now is the time to get involved. Millions of lives depend on it.

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