At Filla Life Media (FLM), we have partnered with many wonderful organizations.
One of these amazing organizations is Protect Life Michigan, located in Lansing, MI,
and led by Executive Director Christen Pollo. Protect Life Michigan exists to recruit,
equip and network pro-life students. They work in high schools and colleges to help
young people learn how to engage in effective conversations about abortion.
According to Christen, 20% of the people they talk to on campuses will change their
minds about abortion right on the spot! Protect Life Michigan trains students to
have heartfelt, truthful conversations with people who do not think the same way
they do.
Protect Life Michigan wants to normalize being pro-life on college campuses and
expel the myth that “everyone there is pro-choice.” In order to accomplish these
goals, they conduct weekly campus outreach. They have 22 college groups that set
up highly visible displays every week that are viewed by thousands of students and
act as springboards for great informative conversations. They have a presence at 22
colleges and 30 high schools, and they also support 3 young professional networks.
According to Christen, many students “just get it.” They see abortion as wrong,
especially if they haven’t been jaded by the world yet. Many people accept abortion
because they see the world as a dark place and believe they don’t have any other
options. By contrast, most high school and college students desire to live in a world
of peace, justice, and non-violence, and Protect Life Michigan highlights these ideals
when presenting a pro-life worldview. They engage students regardless of their
religious or political background. Having meaningful conversations about abortion
that actually change peoples’ minds is what Protect Life Michigan does best! They
frame their stance from a human rights perspective and see abortion as a human
rights violation. “We should consider every solution for an unplanned pregnancy,
except one that perpetuates violence; we should not kill. Killing is not how we solve
problems.”
Protect Life Michigan and FLM began working together when FLM founder Kurt
Filla heard about Project Rosie and reached out to them. Kurt said he cared very
deeply about what they were doing and wanted to help Protect Life Michigan launch
this new project. Protect Life Michigan had never done any online advertising when
Kurt approached them, and soon, they were doing geofence ads to promote
resources to pregnant and parenting college students. With Kurt’s help, Christen
said they have served several hundred women, connecting them to pregnancy
centers, throwing them virtual baby showers, getting them connected with housing
and scholarships, etc. Kurt and his team helped by reaching people online who
otherwise would not have known about Protect Life Michigan.
Christen expressed so much gratitude to Kurt for his courage to leave his former
secular career and venture out on his own in order to save more lives. “Kurt walked
with us every step of the way, helping us understand what creatives are going to
move people, how to utilize the right language and landing page, and so much
more.” Working with FLM has allowed Protect Life Michigan to further its
mission and ultimately reach people who they would otherwise not be able to reach.
Because of their work with FLM, Protect Life Michigan gets phone calls every single
day from pregnant college students who now have resources and a place to go for
help. Recently, FLM has been helping Protect Life Michigan raise awareness on
extremist policies that are making their way into the state of Michigan to wake
people up, and get them involved. These initiatives have allowed Protect Life
Michigan to recruit hundreds of volunteers to help defeat the abortion amendment
that will be on the ballot this fall. Christen said that Michigan is a battleground and
this year abortion will either be banned entirely or made legal in their constitution
through all nine months of pregnancy. Christen said the battle is truly “all or
nothing,” and it has been a blessing to have Kurt help them be able to share the
message with people outside their audience and bring new people into the
knowledge of what is going on.
The advertising that Kurt has done took them from zero to potentially millions of
impressions on each campaign they ran. Since FLM is the only advertising company
they have ever worked with, FLM gets the credit for all of that success! When Kurt
was working on their Project Rosie campaign, they got phone calls every single day
after never getting any calls before they started working with FLM. And at one
point, Christen had to turn off the ads for this project because they did not have
enough people to answer the calls that Kurt was sending their way! She said it was a
great problem to have!
Protect Life Michigan says its organization has changed dramatically since
partnering with FLM. Christen said that everyone is on the internet now, so FLM
helped them tap into something that otherwise they would not have had access to.
“Instead of your limited email list, your audience becomes the entire world when
you are doing online marketing”.
Qualities that have been most helpful to Protect Life Michigan since working with
FLM is how personable and resourceful the FLM staff have been. FLM staff is always
willing to explain what it is they are trying to do and how they are going to go about
doing it! They are also very results driven and are looking at data constantly.
Christen also said that a team member from FLM called her personally to sign up as
a volunteer as well as attended an event. “They care personally and are really
committed to the mission.”
So there you have it. The relationship between Filla Life Media and Protect Life
Michigan has been a fruitful one on all fronts. Lives are being changed, hearts are
being converted, and babies are being saved. Filla Life Media is so grateful for the
partnership they have developed with this mission-based organization and look
forward to continuing to collaborate with them on many more projects.
