Thank you to all the Executives that attended the April conference!
After some time to process the executives that attended CompassCare’s high impact conference in Rochester, NY came away with some valuable tools for continuous improvement when using a linear service model. How to know if doing something new is the right thing for the pregnancy center (A.K.A. innovation) is an extremely important part of keeping our pregnancy centers on the cutting edge.
Conference attendees were given principles and tools including a hands on workshop to help them navigate the sometimes difficult waters of knowing what to do next, how to go about doing it, and assessing whether or not it is helping the organization accomplish its mission of reaching and serving more efficiently women at risk for abortion. The tools included how to effectively:
Assess
Plan
Do
Reassess
Executive attendee Becky Wood made the following comment: “Regarding the OT Conference, it was more than I imagined, not just professionally, but also spiritually where it counts for eternity.
I loved the actual hands on experience of putting into practice the things we discuss about innovation, research, etc.”
Thanks, Becky and all!
For more information about CompassCare’s Linear Service Model call the Optimization Tool go to www.compasscaretraining.org
Imagine 95% of the pregnant clients that walk through your doors at risk for abortion. What if I told you that there are pregnancy centers currently operating for whom this is happening. What if I told you that there are medical PRCs right now for whom 80-90% of their client load is actually pregnant?
There is a saying I use in our executive training OT training, “Strategic Marketing is everything you do.” It is important to note that it really does not matter how large of a population you are attempting to reach, the population of women is fairly connected and the group of women you need to reach is always a very small percentage of that larger population of women and perhaps even more connected to one another due to their close age (18-24). Essentially this means that word gets out fast about an organization in terms of what is provided and how it is provided even in fairly large towns.
The average pregnancy resource center spends less than 10% of its resources on pregnant women who are seriously considering abortion. The following graph represents typical trends seen in the average PRC. Note that with each step there is approximately a 50% reduction in the number of women who actually qualify to go to the next level of service. Whether your organization is scheduling 1000 appointments or 100 take a look at your trends and see if they are in the ball park with the trends shown in this graph.
Advertising outlets and messaging is only as effective at reaching the abortion-minded woman as your service delivery strategy is at over delivering on her expectations. In fact advertising that hits your target of at risk women will work against you over time on a bell curve if the services provided do not match with her expectations. If an organization has a reputation for not providing relevant services or providing those services in a relevant way, even if that reputation is outdated or untrue, it will take at least a four year cycle to reinvent that reputation through re-engineering the services that are provided and the manner in which they are provided to better match with the expectations of the woman who is considering abortion.
What every PRC executive wants is to move their organization from the trend shown in the graph above to the one shown below. But we cannot get there by doing more of what we are currently doing. To save 1000 lives with the current service process used in an average medical PRC they would have to schedule over 25000 appointments every year. I don’t know of a single organization that has the resources to do that. We have to be willing to understand what is not working and change it to see more lives saved using fewer resources.
Increased PRC effectiveness requires a shift in the way we do things
Imagine seeing more at risk pregnant women and more of them having their babies while having your overall non-pregnant or not-at-risk client load decrease to less than 5% of the total clients your serve. The best way to optimize the results your center is getting is by re-engineering your services, moving from a traditional or client-focused model to a linear or problem-focused model of service. You can read more about it at www.compasscaretraining.org.
Its coming . . . more and more attempts to regulate pregnancy centers with State legislation. So far most of them have failed but the abortion industry is getting better at figuring out our internal weaknesses in an effort to limit women’s access to pregnancy centers. Some think that negative regulatory legislation aimed at Pregnancy Centers may happen as early as next year!
All the abortion industry needs is one State to pass restrictive legislation and it could pave the way for other States to follow in their steps. The last thing we want is for the State to begin regulating what Pregnancy Centers do. What we really need is to show the States that we follow standards of our own.
Up until last week Washington State was one of those States. From what I understand the legislation would have made it possible for a woman to sue a pregnancy center ‘for damages’ if she simply did not like what she was told while there. Also, if the Pregnancy Center for some reason were to win the lawsuit it would have made it illegal for them to recover their legal costs from the plaintiff. So not only could they be sued but if they won they would still have to pay for the cost of an expensive lawsuit themselves.
New York Pregnancy Centers have been the target of several pieces of legislation designed to hinder their ability to free speech in marketing as well as limiting their ability to provide limited medical services like ultrasound. In 2006 New York’s Representative Carolyn Maloney introduced a federal bill restricting the free speech of ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ that was actually backed by the ACLU, an organization committed to the broadest interpretation of free speech.
Virginia just a few days ago let a bill die as the legislative session ended for the year without a vote. The idea was to set standards for pregnancy centers to follow informed by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). They even performed an undercover investigation and wrote a report on it (click here to see that report). See their YouTube video about it below.
What is the solution? We need a return to excellence. We need documented ethical standards of our own. Furthermore, we need documented processes outlining the way we serve every pregnant woman including what we say as well as when it is said and by whom. We need to show that the way we provide medical services to women facing unintended pregnancy is the highest and only standard of care and that even abortion-providers should follow our protocols . . . because they are right, they don’t just feel right. Do you know what is being said to each woman when the door to the counseling room is shut? Do you know for sure that your nurses are not using medical tools to intentionally manipulate women’s emotions. Do you know for sure that your counselors are not dispensing any type of information that could be considered medical in nature? Do have people without a medical license running pregnancy tests? What exactly is being said to women when they are scheduled for an appointment? If all you have to go on is one person who says something like, “We have good counselors . . . they would never say anything they are not supposed to say” then you as an executive can be fairly certain you’ve got problem.
Here is the Acid Test to know if your organization is doing the right things in the right way: Everything you do is written down in a book that everyone follows, parts of which are even memorized as scripts. If you can’t point to that book, and I’m NOT talking about a Policy manual, then it is impossible for your organization to consistently meet any ethical standard. If by some stretch of the imagination your organization is so well run that you hit the bull’s eye let’s say for 1 ethical standard you could not prove it in a court of law without that book and the documentation that each person was trained in doing their job exactly according to the book AND that you have documentation that they followed their training with each and every patient. That is standardization.
“But abortionists don’t do that why should we?” you might ask. It is because they don’t regulate themselves that it is imperative we do. Once we have a clear, well thought out, ethical application of information and medical services aimed at helping women facing unplanned pregnancy to make a truly informed decision then we will have the high ground, then we can begin to see legislation drafted and passed regulating the irresponsible, self-interested, unethical abortion industry. But this will take commitment on the part of the executive, a commitment to applying a linear services model, to changing the way things are done. To learn more about implementing a written, linear service model click on the new CompassCare Training Website here: www.compasscaretraining.org
Jesus through His death and resurrection addressed the single greatest problem of humanity; sin and the separation from God it caused. By focusing on solving the problem common to all it became the epitome of all solutions, able to elegantly apply to each individual. Likewise, running a Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC) ministry with a clear understanding of the common problem of unplanned pregnancy faced by the women we serve is important. But even more important is the ability to clearly articulate the common path to solving that problem, which is the same despite the particular circumstances of each woman. If a PRC attempts to engage each woman as she comes with no clear, distinct path of helping her understand the nature of unplanned pregnancy and what her options are in terms of solving the problem, it is difficult at best to consistently see women at risk for abortion having their babies. Without a plan and process for solving the problem every woman faces it is almost impossible to have a relevant solution for any woman. It is only after we become experts at solving the problem of unplanned pregnancy that we are free to engage each woman’s unique situation. How does a ministry like CompassCare arrive at the process that best solves the problem of unplanned pregnancy for women seriously considering abortion? It is through consistent prayer for wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To be sure the Holy Spirit guides groups of people into making decisions and taking action (Acts 13:1-3, 15:28; 16:6-7; 20:28) just as He guides individuals. Therefore, we believe that CompassCare should expect that the Holy Spirit is able to guide us as we build and organize to achieve that vision through highly developed and measurable systems. In fact, we are told that the very redemptive work of Jesus on the cross was “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23, see also Acts 4:28; Luke 22:22). A ministry is essentially an organization of people designed to redeem the situation of a person or a community of persons with a specific type of problem. Jesus knew what He needed to say and do for specific “audiences”, as well as the timing and content of His message to them (Matthew 13:10-17; 15:24; 16:21; Luke 4:18-19).
CompassCare represents a new generation of PRCs moving from a loose ‘client-centered’ model to a highly defined ‘problem-focused’ model. Being problem-focused (the quintessential unplanned pregnancy solution provider) allows the organization the ability to accurately measure what works and what does not and make targeted and prayerful changes to see more lives saved and more women come to Christ.
In what is known as the “Parable of the Talents” (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus describes a principle of the kingdom of heaven in terms of responsible stewardship leading to increase. The size of the responsibility may vary (vs 15) but the requirement and accountability do not. The servants who proactively engaged in activity to fulfill their responsibility were commended as “good and faithful servants”. However, the one who reactively was passive acting out of fear was condemned as “wicked and slothful”. The main point Jesus is making with this parable is that those who are wise stewards with what they have been given (no matter what amount that is) will demonstrate that stewardship by having a tangible increase (profit, fruitfulness) and then will be rewarded by being given even more. However, those who fearfully try to protect what they have will lose even the little that they have because of their poor stewardship (vs 29).
Jesus says in Matthew 11:19 “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
CompassCare network deeds 2009: 1847 babies saved, 154 women committing their lives to Christ.
Listen to Jim Harden as he teaches Executives of medical Pregnancy Resource Centers on the importance of making the shift from the traditional client-focused, ‘global’ services model to a problem-focused, ‘linear’ service model.
Many Executives I know have wondered at how patients respond to a new paradigm of service. At CompassCare we like to describe the service model we use as “linear” as opposed to a more traditional “global” model. A linear model takes a patient very intentionally through a pre-defined step by step service process. A global services model on the other hand uses a menu board of services from which a client/patient can choose and those services are delivered in different ways with each client/patient.
nt women who are seriously considering abortion. The following graph represents typical trends seen in the average PRC. Note that with each step there is approximately a 50% reduction in the number of women who actually qualify to go to the next level of service. Whether your organization is scheduling 1000 appointments or 100 take a look at your trends and see if they are in the ball park with the trends shown in this graph.
