Human Coalition’s pioneering work to rescue children from abortion throughout America began more than fifteen years ago. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and go back to where it all began.
The idea of Human Coalition was born in 2007 when two tech-savvy business guys got together and asked each other a bold question: What if we could save babies online using the internet?
What if we could save babies online using the internet?
It sounded crazy, but it also sounded crazy not to try.
They recognized that moms were going to the internet to find an appointment and that they could use internet marketing to reach these moms and rescue children from abortion.
The result: more than 34,800 moms and their children have been spared from the tragedy of abortion.
The original grit and determination of Human Coalition’s founders to innovate has never wavered and has become the DNA that still drives Human Coalition today.
Going to the Source: The Internet
When facing an unexpected pregnancy, moms actively seeking an abortion do what we all typically do when looking for answers: They go online. There, they look for a place to talk to someone about how much it will cost or to schedule an abortion appointment.
The reality is that if a mom doesn’t find life-affirming resources when searching for an abortion, she may never even know that there was another option. Human Coalition has worked for nearly two decades to reach those moms at the critical moment when their child’s life hangs in the balance — before they’ve been convinced by the abortion industry that there is no other option and their child is lost forever.
In its early days, Human Coalition consisted of a small group of business guys working on laptops on tray tables in one of their living rooms. They were trying to figure out how to reach these vulnerable moms online before the abortion industry did. The strategy was simple: Use the internet to reach a mom looking for an abortion and connect her directly to a pregnancy center that could help address the reasons why she was seeking an abortion in the first place.
And their theory proved correct: Human Coalition has consistently found that 76% of its abortion-seeking clients say they wouldn’t be seeking an abortion if their circumstances were different.
Human Coalition became the very first organization to seek out women searching for abortions online and connect them with life-affirming resources. In 2010, the first Human Coalition child was rescued from abortion. That first mom’s call was answered on the cell phone of an executive director at a pregnancy center in Pittsburgh while she was grocery shopping one evening.
But that pregnancy center director had something the abortion industry lacks: She cared about the mom on the other end of the line. And she and her team were prepared for the challenge of walking with her.
Rising Above Each Challenge
Fifteen children were rescued that first year! Praise God!
But with growth came new challenges. One of the first hurdles was that less than half of the calls being generated by the online marketing efforts were actually being answered. This problem needed a solution.
So, in 2013, Human Coalition pioneered a national contact center staffed with trained professionals using a consistent, caring approach to field calls every day. The percentage of phone calls being answered increased from about 40% to over 90%. Phone calls were being answered, and by using trained and paid staff instead of relying on a network of volunteers, the number of moms walking through the doors of their local pregnancy center was increasing as well.
Excited about the percentage of calls being answered and moms walking into the pregnancy centers, the team turned its attention to the next challenge: increasing the percentage of moms who rejected abortion and chose life for their babies.
From Inspiration to Implementation
The team turned to a group of business professionals at another successful company to seek guidance. This group recommended that Human Coalition utilize a “franchise” model. In this model, Human Coalition would own and operate their own pregnancy centers and use those centers as places for testing and innovation.
Heeding this advice, Human Coalition began operating its first brick-and-mortar pregnancy center in 2014. They tested to determine the best practices for engaging the abortion-seeking mom in a pregnancy center and gathered deeper insights into what motivates a mom to say “yes” to life for her child. They experimented with “atmospherics,” such as the decor style and ambience in the center, seeking to learn what an appointment looked and felt like from the mom’s point-of-view.
And what they found is that life decisions are impacted by these factors. The number of moms who were choosing life began to increase. Human Coalition was coming to understand who the abortion-seeking mom was and what her motivations for seeking an abortion were. Additionally, Human Coalition was able to share these insights with many more pregnancy centers so that the entire pregnancy center movement could benefit.
One discovery that came from this end-to-end care was becoming aware that 76% of moms said that they would prefer to parent if their circumstances were different. Many moms weren’t seeking abortions because they wanted them. They were seeking abortions because they felt they had no other choice.
They faced really difficult life circumstances ranging from a lack of support from family, a challenging financial situation, unreliable housing, and more. These obstacles needed to be addressed before choosing life could feel like a real possibility for these moms.
Walking with Moms Beyond the Yes
Next, Human Coalition’s leaders set out to establish a robust program for helping meet the needs that cause women to seek abortions in the first place. Women need to feel connected and supported throughout their pregnancies and beyond. The Continuum of Care program was introduced in 2015, and it pairs moms with a social worker to address their tangible needs. Continuum of Care is a long-term, holistic support model that provides compassionate counseling, medical referrals, and ongoing social services before, during, and after pregnancy. The Continuum of Care program works to move a mom from feeling surrounded by chaos and hopelessness to feeling hopeful and empowered to parent.
In 2018, Human Coalition had an opportunity to care for moms beyond the physical brick-and-mortar locations already established. Strategically, the challenge at hand was how to effectively scale the operations.
It would be challenging financially to expand with additional brick-and-mortar facilities.
However, they recognized that there were hundreds of pregnancy centers already doing great work in their communities. Human Coalition decided to pioneer telecare counseling. This innovative approach allowed moms to be connected directly to a nurse to provide immediate care over the phone. In this conversation, moms would receive the counseling they typically received in person at a center and then be referred to a pregnancy center for in-person services like a pregnancy test, ultrasound, and additional counseling.
Telecare had more benefits than initially anticipated. Yes, it expanded the ability to reach moms, overcoming geographic barriers in a cost-effective manner. But it also eliminated the transportation barriers that moms faced for an in-person clinic visit. The percentage of moms receiving life-affirming counseling increased from about 45% to over 85%. It also positioned Human Coalition to better compete with Planned Parenthood by offering faster and more accessible care. Moms are now able to receive counseling from a nurse minutes after finding out they are pregnant!
The Mission Must Go On
In 2020, the world shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic was an unexpected hurdle that no one saw coming. Launching telecare counseling ahead of the pandemic proved to be God’s perfect timing. Over the course of a single weekend, telecare was expanded to all markets beyond Texas, ensuring that by Monday morning, no call would go unanswered.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the needs of moms facing unexpected pregnancies have not changed. Even in states where abortions are banned and illegal, abortions are still happening as abortion pills are being illegally mailed into those states.
The next mom actively seeking an abortion is online right now, searching for answers. And the baby in her womb cannot defend himself or herself. Because of supporters like you across the country, more moms are being reached, more babies are being rescued from abortion, and more families are being restored to long-term stability!
