Online for Life: Saving babies one Internet search at a time
Live Action had the chance to speak with Brian Fisher over at Online for Life about the inside scoop on what they do and how it all began. This is what we learned.
Live Action: What is Online for Life (OFL) and how did it get started?Online for Life: OFL consists of business people who left the for-profit world to rescue babies and families from abortion full time. Several of us have some background in Internet marketing and technology, so we apply the same sort of tools we used in our for-profit days to rescue babies. My background is in media (online and traditional), securities (stocks and bonds), executive management, and corporate turnarounds.
Live Action: How does Online for Life connect with abortion-minded individuals?
Online for Life: We use 3 or 4 different Internet techniques to reach abortion-determined people online. Some of it does involve search engine outreach on engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing (when someone searches for abortion info in her area, we will pop up as an option). Some involves strategic advertising, and some involves search engine optimization. We do our outreach on desktop and mobile platforms.
Live Action: How does Online for Life connect individuals with pregnancy resource centers and ultrasound buses?
Online for Life: We work in markets where we have relationships with strong pregnancy centers and mobile units. So we work to reach at-risk families in those locations, and then we provide them direct phone access to the pregnancy center or mobile unit. In a few cities we are also testing chat. We want the client to have a personal touch as fast as possible, so most of the clients use the phone. It is a crisis moment for these clients, thus we always want a calm, loving, reassuring voice to be on the other end of the line. We tend to avoid more impersonal options such as online forms or email, though we do test them.
If the pregnancy center or mobile is busy and can’t get to a phone call, OFL has a backup call center that answers the phones, assists the clients, and provides the option for clients to schedule appointments at their local pregnancy center. We want to make sure every possible caller is cared for, and this back up center has been a very effective addition to our work.
Live Action: Have you received testimonies advocating your work from women who had been abortion-minded?
Online for Life: We are blessed to hear stories every day about how OFL, in cooperation with pregnancy centers and mobile units, are transforming lives and rescuing babies. Because of our technological approach, pregnancy centers follow up with us and let us know the outcome of each client we refer to them.
Online for Life’s work is so successful that just this past week, numerous reports of mothers who chose life as a result of their work came in. One teenage girl who is the daughter of a pastor was abortion-minded. After her sonogram she decided to face her father and pray about the baby. She chose life. Another young woman who already has a small child and felt overwhelmed by the current pregnancy viewed her sonogram and chose life.
As you can see, said Brian, these are very real situations with heartache, stress, pain, and challenge. By providing clients with an option to speak with someone who genuinely cares about them and will love them regardless of what they decide, the client has a few moments of peace to carefully through through their decision. Very often the client will choose life for their baby and themselves after appropriate counseling, an ultrasound, and other practical help is provided.
Live Action: What is the purpose of the Online for Life iPhone app?Online for Life: The OFL iPhone app is the first of its kind in history. We are now able to connect the massive praying community in America with those at risk to abort their child, essentially in real time. We believe in the power of pray, and the more people praying on the app, the more babies and families that will be rescued from abortion.
The power of the app is in the prayer feature. When an at-risk client chooses to come in to a pro-life clinic for an appointment, the clinic lets us know (generically) someone is coming in. We then send a push notification to all those app users in the general area that someone is at risk and would they agree to pray?
If they do say they will pray, we’ll also alert them when the center notifies us of the outcome.
Never before have praying people had the opportunity to intercede in a life and death decision like this. Though technology often provides us the opportunity to sin, lie, and corrupt, Scripture says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains.” So we are using technology for Good, leveraging the awesome power of the iPhone to rescues lives from abortion.
Plus it’s free. How cool is that?
Though the app is brand new, our goal is to get 250,000 people using the free app and praying daily for the at-risk clients we have the honor of serving. People can find us for iPhone, iPad, and iTouch at iTunes by searching for Online for Life or OFL.
Online for Life is accomplishing great things. To date, the program has saved at least 931 children and women from abortion. OFL says: Because of our technological, business-oriented approach, OFL is able to appropriately measure and monitor all aspects of our work. We have two sayings in our office “If we can’t measure it, we won’t do it.” and “If we can measure it, we can improve it.” Online for Life’s commitment to getting the maximum return from technology prompts them to constantly test new ideas and innovations in order to reach the abortion-minded community in the best way possible, and communicate well with the PRCs and mobile units who will be connecting with those individuals. Follow Online for Life on Facebook or Twitter, and monitor their life-saving progress by checking their website to see the tally that tracks the number of lives saved as a result of Online for Life’s technological advances.
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