Thanks, Members, for Your Life-Giving Support!

By Wanda Franz

National Right to Life has just successfully completed its membership phoning
campaign. Let me thank everyone who renewed NRLC memberships this year. The membership mailing and phoning conducted at the beginning of each year provide a significant portion of our budget, and your response has been greatly appreciated.

Pro-abortion groups feel threatened by recent pro-life actions and statements by the Bush Administration. They are aggressively mobilizing new grassroots projects and initiating multi-million dollar advertising campaigns. Since we don't receive the major corporate and even tax dollars that some pro-abortion groups (such as Planned Parenthood) receive, our ability to respond to these pro-abortion attacks depends on the generosity of you, our members.

Make sure that phone calls are from National Right to Life or your state affiliate of National Right to Life.

Phoning for our membership campaign is now complete, but some phoning will continue in the coming months for two NRLC projects that help us enormously in our work.

1. Life Pledge Program:

Some of our members will receive a call to ask if they would like to sign up for NRLC's Life Pledge program. Life Pledge members agree to donate any amount, large or small, over a period of up to three years. Donations can be monthly, quarterly, yearly, or any other schedule the member wishes.

Life Pledge members receive periodic updates on pro-life issues. Once they've been in the program for a month or so, they no longer receive NRLC's fundraising letters or phone calls, merely a reminder shortly before their pledge payment is due.

Advantages for National Right to Life of the Life Pledge Program are that it helps level out our income throughout the year and it cuts down on paperwork, mailings, and phone calls we would otherwise make.

2. Partners for Life

Spring is the time for NRLC's annual Partners for Life campaign. We call members and supporters of National Right to Life and offer to provide letters and envelopes they can send to their pro-life friends, relatives, church members, etc. The letter tells of the lifesaving work of National Right to Life and invites the friend to join NRLC with a small donation. Over the past two years, donations have provided NRLC with a net of $330,000 for critical programs, and many new and valued members have been added to our pro-life movement. It's a great way to help the Right to Life movement reach out and grow.

If you are interested in becoming a member of Life Pledge or volunteering for Partners for Life, please call NRLC's Development Office at (202) 626-8813.

If you receive either of these calls for National Right to Life, you will know it is an appeal for a legitimate project of the National Right to Life Committee. We recommend you double check to be sure that any call is on behalf of National Right to Life or your state affiliate of NRLC.

National Right to Life never asks anyone for his or her checking account number. If you receive such a call, it is not coming from National Right to Life.

We have received hundreds of phone calls from members who have made contributions to other phone solicitors, thinking they were giving to National Right to Life. Members have told us that some of these other phone solicitors have claimed an urgent, immediate need for money to pass a bill like the partial-birth abortion ban (which isn't even being heard in Congress at the present).
According to our members, they have asked the prospective donor to give his or her checking account number so the money can be immediately deducted because of the "urgent need."

National Right to Life does not ask anyone for his or her checking account number. If you receive such a request, the caller is not working on behalf of National Right to Life.

Everyone who makes a phone pledge to support our work is deeply appreciated by all of us here at NRLC. After making any type of pledge, wait for the confirmation letter. The information and return address in the letter will tell you who solicited you, and you will know that your money is going to the group you intend it to go to.