SPEAKER_04 0:11

Okay, the good news to the broken heart.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

Family passions for the month.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

All right, here we go. Well, welcome to the ProLife Team podcast. Today I've got Sarah here, and she's gonna be in interviewing John at some level. So, Sarah, go ahead and take over and feel free to give your background and invite John to do the same. And I'm just gonna watch and listen.

SPEAKER_08 5:11

Jacob's like, this is gonna be hilarious, and I'm here for it. So my name is Sarah. I'm the executive director of Promise of Life Network in Western Pennsylvania. I'm also the founding president of the Pennsylvania Pregnancy Wellness Collaborative, which is our statewide coalition. And I was on like forever ago, Jacob, but I can't remember. I think we talked about our international chat line when I was on.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

We did your podcast. Yeah, because you were you're in a rural area and you were taking phone calls from Africa because your team wanted more work during the day.

SPEAKER_08 5:39

We were like, man, we're not getting enough Americans. What if we just opened up to the rest of the world? Yeah. So we started, we've now ministered to over 40,000 women, mostly in the developing world. Um, all of them absolutely abortion minded, and we have about an 85% save rate. So it's like super incredible. It's a the weirdest ministry. Absolutely love it. And so I reached out to Jacob and I was like, hey, you should have John Rurworth on your podcast because he's pretty cool. So I'm gonna let you introduce yourself, John, and then we'll start talking about all the amazing questions I have for you.

SPEAKER_07 6:12

Sounds good. So I'm John Merworth. Um I'm coming to you from Thrive Point Consulting. Um, it's a fairly new um consulting firm that I started back at the end of last year. Um prior to that, uh, I have more than seven years experience running at a pregnancy center in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. And prior to that, I was an entrepreneur. I owned my own business and ran and operated that for 12 years. And going back one step further, I came from corporate America. So I was in the um sales and service industry for for most of my life and built that up and became a regional director um for a a fairly large firm, a worldwide firm. And then um looked at my paycheck one day and I said, Well, wait a minute. I'm generating all this money for this organization, and my paycheck's like this. I said, I could do this myself without the headaches. So I started and and did that. So for about 12 years, I was operating my own business, and then um one day I happened to come home from around the golf on a Friday and my wife was standing there and she had a bulletin insert in her hand, and she goes, Hey, the pregnancy center is looking for a volunteer. And I said, Oh, really? That's nice. What do they want? And she said she said she said they won they want somebody who can act as a handyman, serve for for IT purposes, and also be a chaplain. She said, You'd be perfect for the job. So little did I know that's very common in the in the pregnancy world, the pregnancy center world. Uh let's see if we can get somebody to do three jobs and do it for five hours a week and for free.

SPEAKER_08 8:02

We're still doing that. That's not something we left behind 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_07 8:05

Well, no, I I understand. I didn't understand at the time, but I understand now. Um but anyway, um it wasn't long as I started to volunteer at the pregnancy center that um they realized that I knew a little bit about business, and that's one of the places that the pregnancy center was really struggling in was the back end. Um good hearted people, um definitely had a heart for the ministry, very good with clients, um, very loving. But when it came to the business side of things, there really wasn't um a lot of people with that kind of skill set. And so they recognized right away that I did, and they asked me to be the business manager, and that lasted for about six months, and then the the board asked me to take over as the executive director, and then eventually the CEO. Um but it was it was very timely because the organization was on the brink of failure. And really what they needed was someone who knew how to manage people, knew how to direct communications, and knew how to make financial decisions and make some tough calls, actually. Um things that we were holding on to that didn't make sense business wise, um, but we were in debt and our income wasn't enough to meet budget. But um thankfully, um the board gave me entrepreneurial permission to proceed and we made some big decisions and turned that around. So when I first took over, our budget was around four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Um when I left last year we were at one point seven million, so within within a few years.

SPEAKER_08 9:49

It's really the opposite of when you went from corporate America to running your own business. You said I would like a smaller paycheck and a lot of headaches. And you And I'm saying that as the director of pregnancy.

SPEAKER_07 10:03

Yeah, right. But you know, so there was there was more to it um getting involved. It wasn't it wasn't just like the business model on that side. I mean, that was exciting to take something that that needed to grow and that needed to be um developed. But I ha I ha also had an abortion experience in my background as a teenager. Um so little did I know that that gave me some insight um into what people were experiencing that are going through an unplanned pregnancy that a lot of my friends I know they didn't understand that. So they were I have a lot of pro-life friends at the time who were very pro-life, but they didn't understand what was going on emotionally and mentally inside someone who's going through an unplanned pregnancy. And I was able to see like some of the comments they were making, some of the ways that they approached the issue to say, like, wait a minute, let's let's unpack this, let's try to understand what's really going on. So I was able to bring that along with that business experience into the pregnancy center. So I just I always go back to a verse in Esther chapter four where you know Mordecai approaches her and says, You gotta do something, and you know, paraphrasing, of course. And she goes, Well, you don't understand. If I go and talk to the king, he didn't call me, I could I could die. And Mordecai looked at her and said, Who knows that maybe you've come to your position for such a time as this, right? And I think that happens to many of us um more often than we realize that God takes things that maybe has been planted in you 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years ago and brings it back around and uses that in your life, you know, later on. That's his time.

SPEAKER_08 11:50

So John and I met um through the PPWC, which is crazy that we had actually had significant overlap. Um the the best part was when I showed up at his center in I think it was 24, and you did a political tour with a couple different representatives and stuff, and so I went out as like the PPWC representative, right? Because he's he's representing his center at the time, and I'm I'm going in and you know, coming in as the coalition representative. And I ran into like people I used to go to church with at the thrift store. So there's like tons of overlap, but we didn't actually meet until 2023. And we both started, um, we were both founding members of the Pennsylvania Pregnancy Wellness Collaborative, which is the statewide coalition for Pennsylvania. So, John, tell us, um, you know, your hosts, the some of the things that we've done as the state of Pennsylvania and some of the things like we'd like to do in the next couple years. And you know I'm gonna try mid because I can't believe Jacob has given me this much power, honestly. I'm like super excited about it.

SPEAKER_07 12:48

I can tell. You're just like really comfortable right now. I can just tell you.

SPEAKER_08 12:51

Well, this is great. I get to ask you questions. You're being recorded, so you have to be nice. I mean, this is we're hitting all my all my fun parts right now.

SPEAKER_07 13:00

So so let me let me just give a little bit of a backdrop. So for me, and I'll just talk about me personally, because I think we all had different reasons, Sarah, right? Um, but for me, when um the Dobbs decision came down and Roe v. Wade was overturned, I know like a lot of people celebrated when that happened. And I remember sitting in my office quietly thinking, like, I don't know, I don't know if this is something to be celebrating about. I mean, I I I understand it, but at the same time, I was thinking to myself, I don't think everybody knows what's coming our way because of that. Like if you lived at the time, if you lived in like in a red state, a conservative state, a pro-life state, that was good for you. But if you lived in a more liberal, democratic, pro-abortion state, I knew that pressure was gonna come because the other side wasn't just gonna sit back and and and stand still. They were gonna react to it. And that's exactly what happened for my center, um, our local municipality um went and adopted several ordinances that were meant to protect abortion clinics but target pregnancy centers. And I know some people that are listening to this know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about buffer zones, I'm talking about complaint buttons on city websites, things like that. And when at the time when that happened, it had already these ordinances already got passed in several other towns across the country, and one in particular, a big city in Pennsylvania. And ours was the second city that they were they were coming after. And um when I went and looked for advice um on what to do about this, you know, I went to the the normal places that any pregnancy center director would go to. Um but I got basically no real good advice, basically was sit back, wait, and see what happens, and I took it upon myself not to wait, and we rallied the troops and we really protested and we showed up in City Hall and and we made as much um chatter about it as we could, and eventually our um city council and the mayor, they backed down and and they they just removed they tabled those things indefinitely. And it was because we stood up and had a voice and it had a pretty loud voice, I think I think we probably set a record for the amount of people that were in the um the chambers for the for the city council. Um hundreds of people. And they were just surprised by that. And the mayor especially said that I don't want to take this on. I actually threatened to sue the city if they pass those ordinances. And I think I heard I heard an inside scoop was the mayor had a private meeting with some of the council members and he says, I think this guy's serious. So we're not gonna we're not I'm not gonna um sign off on these ordinances. So they backed down. But anyway, that's when I realized that in Pennsylvania we needed Eloise. And it was it was shortly after that that I got contacted by Sarah and a couple others, Sarah Sarah in particular, asking me if I would be willing to join the the founding group to form this uh form this coalition, and I and I was happy to do it. So to answer your question, uh Sarah, I think one of the biggest things that I realized that the PPWC has done is was unify unify our voices. So we were able to contract with a uh public relations person and they really helped us um uh hone in and and sharpen our communication skills. And that was something that we've been able to reach our policymakers in in Harrisburg, our state capital, with those talking points and with that type of messaging, and we were able to have several political events at the Capitol. Um we've uh met with a lot of senators and representatives who really got to hear from pregnancy centers and with a unifying voice. So we're keeping the same messaging from every every person that we talk to. So it started to resonate. And I think that that's probably one of the biggest impacts that we've had. And for some of the centers, we freed up hundreds of thousands of dollars um to fund some of the work that some of the pregnancy centers are doing in Pennsylvania. It's because of the the um the collaborative that we're able to do that.

SPEAKER_08 17:35

Well, I think it's just it's been really interesting, very eye-opening to me to see how even our friendlies need us to represent ourselves. Because you can have organizations that are super pro-life, they love pregnancy centers, they love what we do, but they don't do it all the time. And so they're kind of in the weeds of whatever they're doing, whether it's political activism or education or whatever, and then all of a sudden they're getting questions about what do pregnancy centers do. And so they've been like incredibly supportive of us speaking for ourselves and and having an opportunity to do that. And so it's been really neat as Pennsylvania to have that. And I always tell John, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

No, you go.

SPEAKER_08 18:14

Okay, you go. So I tell John all the time, he thinks it's ridiculous, but like I hear his story of of this situation that he had in his city. Um, and I'm always like, I feel sad because nobody was there. Like the rest of the centers didn't show up because we didn't know what was happening because there was no connection, right? And John's like, you don't have to feel sad, we were fine. And I was like, No, I feel sad. Because when something like that happens, we should be there for each other. And so we had um the the first choice case that went to the Supreme Court from New Jersey they had one of their hearings was in Philly at like one of the circuit courts, and so tons of Pennsylvania centers showed up. Like we put out the word to the coalition and we were like, hey, our sister across the river is isn't is dealing with this, like let's let's turn out and make it and show show them that we're there for them. Tons of centers turned out, and that's because the coalition gives us a chance to do that, and we didn't have that before.

SPEAKER_07 19:08

Yeah. So what was I gonna say before I was interrupted by the host?

SPEAKER_06 19:12

I don't know, the hostess.

SPEAKER_07 19:14

Oh well, I know there was a couple of interesting things that happened as the PPWC started to come in together, and there was one, there was this pro-life working group, is what it's called, I think. That meets in Harrisburg once a year, and it's a bunch of pro-life organizations that come in. One of the things that occurred to me the first time that I went, we must have had I would say between 10 and 15 representatives from organizations take the stage and talk about what they do. And it's all pro-life, and they're very excited about it, and everybody cheers them on. And I was sitting back in my chair and I'm thinking, my goodness. We're we are the only ones who actually meet with men and women who are in an unplanned pregnancy. Like all these they're they're talking about billboards and you know, all these things that they do for the pro-life movement. I'm thinking there's not one person here that represents an organization who actually meets with men and women who are experiencing, who are having this experience, but it's us. And for years, we never spoke at these things. The one place that actually meets with men and women who are going through a pregnancy decision, facing abortion, the one organization who actually meets with them is the only one who's not talking. But that has all changed since we formed the coalition, so we make sure that we get in there. Just one quick story about Sarah that I have to mention is you know, there's people that are using language from like the 80s when it comes to pregnancy centers. Like they'll say crisis pregnancy centers, you know. That was like a term that was used like in the 70s and 80s. And we were at this we were at the state capitol, and there was this guy representing a pro-life group, and he goes, Oh, I just love crisis pregnancy centers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Sarah, it was Sarah's turn to talk, and she said, First of all, can you please stop calling us crisis pregnancy centers? I just thought it was great.

SPEAKER_08 21:13

So Yeah, but if we weren't there, yeah, I did want to I did want them to stop. And it was very nice about it. But like I think as pregnancy centers, we're always afraid to like say anything, or um, oh, we're not doing that much, or we're just really small, or we don't have that much to offer. And the reality is we have so much to offer. So um, and and what we have to offer is not just important to the pro life movement, it's important to men and women statewide, and not just from a pro life perspective. So one of the things that we've been working on at the P PwC, and this is the fo our focus this year, is closing gaps in maternal health care. And I'm sure that you've heard of this, Jacob, I'm sure that you've um even probably talked about on your podcast before, but this idea of maternal health deserts. And I have like a bazillion children like at least forty five, I don't even know. I've I have six kids and they range from I have half a dozen children, but they're all boys. So it seems like like a lot more than than six. Um, and so maternal health care from when I had my first 16 years ago to when I had my fifth and sixth three years ago has changed drastically. Like there's fewer places for labor and delivery, um, there's fewer opportunities for good OB care, appointments are shorter. Um, it's not because the doctors are evil or the hospitals are evil or they don't want to help women, it's just it's a shortage. There's not enough doctors, there's not enough offices. Um, labor and delivery is just it's a it's a big liability. It takes a lot of staff. And women go into labor when they go into labor. Like you can't organize it and plan it like you can with a lot of other things. And so pregnancy centers are absolutely critical to bridging that gap. And that's something that John, I mean both of us, but John especially is like just very passionate about. And it's it's our focus this year at the collaborative. So tell us more about bridging the maternal health gap.

SPEAKER_07 23:02

Sure. Well, the first thing I'll say is it really starts by knowing your backyard. Um, what I mean by that is like for Thrive Point Consulting, one of the things that we've done, it's one of our signature offerings, is what I call a county maternal health intelligence brief. Really, what it is, it's an analysis of your community and it breaks down all the demographics and what the needs are and what's really occurring. Because I think a lot of people across the country that are running pregnancy centers, boards, they really don't understand what is happening right in their own town. Like, for instance, like like in a in a in an organ in a place where Sarah lives in the pregnancy center where she's at, Mercer County, Lawrence County, uh, Butler, um, what am I missing?

SPEAKER_08 23:54

We also serve Crawford and Veningo.

SPEAKER_07 23:56

Crawford, right. Um, when you look at that and you start to realize that like, you know, 30, almost 40% of the households only have one car. And when you look at that and you start to say when there's an adopter's appointment, what does that mean? And especially in the in the places where we just mentioned those counties, you might have to drive 45 minutes to an hour to get to a doctor's appointment. So now you have a choice. You have one vehicle, somebody in the house just has to work, so they need to drive the work, and then somebody else needs to get to the doctor. That creates a barrier. And I can also tell you that in those counties where Sarah is at, like almost 50% of the women who are pregnant are not seeing a maternal health care provider until they're 14 to 16 weeks. Okay, that's well into the second trimester. So you just think about it for a second, because some people will say, well, you start talking about maternal health care, that could be mission drift. No, it's not. When do women make a decision about their pregnancy? It's very early. Definitely in the first trimester for the most part, right? So when they're six, eight, ten weeks, that's when they're making this decision. So a lot of the women aren't even seeing anybody for advice, confirmation of their pregnancy until they're in their second trimester. So if we can start bridging that gap and seeing people early on, being that confirmation expert, making sure that we're doing those early scans for viability, for placement, and for gestational eggs, so that we can start putting a plan together for a good delivery and a good outcome. These things make perfect sense and they fit right into what pregnancy centers are already doing across the nation. Um, but again, it goes back to understanding what those gaps are. Like in for Sarah's situation, you know, transportation is a big thing. So just by adding the ability to provide transportation to people who are early in their pregnancy makes a makes a world of difference. And you might not even think of that as being a solution to a problem, but once you start doing these analyses and you start doing a diagnostic of what's going on in your town, it it it it shines light on the issues, and then you can start filling those gaps that we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_08 26:22

Well, and a lot of it is stuff that we know kind of on a gut level. Like I know that my clients maybe only have one car or one reliable car. Or I know that like if they could have gas money, if they could have a gas card, they could get a friend to drive them. But if they don't, they're not gonna get someone. Um, but to be able to take the data from the report and I can show it to our county commissioners, or I can show it to our state representatives, or I can show it to a donor or a granting organization, it's it's a real tremendous tool.

SPEAKER_06 26:54

We'll have to we're gonna have to get her a new internet connection, Jacob.

SPEAKER_08 26:58

Sorry, I'm not hearing the boonies, it's really bad. But I know I know where she's we don't have transportation or internet.

SPEAKER_07 27:05

No, I know.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

It should upload at the end. It should upload in the end. We'll probably be okay.

SPEAKER_07 27:14

Yeah. But again, what she's saying is you sort of have this gut feeling, but it's then to really look at the data that supports what you're saying. And then it's even helpful to talk to like stakeholders to really get behind what you're doing after for them to see to see the data and see the results. It's like the other thing, too, like we talk we talk about OB deserts. Well, there's some places where there aren't any. So like in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, they probably have more OBs in that county than any other county in the state. But they're all clustered. They're all clustered in one location around the main hospital hubs and then the main medical providers. So if you're rural, you're still very far away from an OB, but then it gets complicated. 48% of the women in Lancaster County, 40% of the birth, 48% of the births are Medicaid paid for. And and nearly a third of the OBs don't accept Medicaid. So you, you know, it's really when you start digging out and finding and digging down and finding out what's really happening, it is very eye-opening and it helps, it helps to bridge the gaps. And it's been helping helping the PPWC um talk to policymakers um about about this situation, about what's going on here in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_06 28:41

We lost our host again, our guest hosts.

SPEAKER_07 28:43

I think Cyrus here.

SPEAKER_08 28:44

No, they're yeah, they're it's we have so in addition to not having cars or transportation here in the sticks of Pennsylvania, we also don't have a lot of options when it comes to internet providers. And this is ridiculous. Um, but every day we know when all the kids get home from school because our bandwidth like gives up the ghost. They all come home, they all get on their on their devices, and that's the end of it. So, do you know um this has nothing to do with pregnancy health, but you know the little dinosaur that shows up on Google Chrome and you can like make it jump over stuff when you don't have connection? We actually had a an ongoing competition on our whiteboard for who could get the highest score because everyone was so frustrated with the internet, it was the only thing that kept us safe.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

What score did you get, Sarah?

SPEAKER_08 29:34

What? I was killing it. Trust me. I could jump those little trees no matter how fast he ran. It was super good. Um, so that's just my reality.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

It's incredible.

SPEAKER_08 29:47

Yeah, because you live in the land of whatever because you live in the land of high bandwidth, so you don't have to worry about it. Um okay, so we talked about the coalition, we talked about internal health. Tell us a little bit about, and this is this is what I I'm, you know, we all serve on the board of the coalition together, as eight of us, and we've all realized that each of us has specific strengths or unique areas of ministry, and we lean on each other for that. Like that's one of the cool things about the coalition. And that um all of obviously the eight of us are close because we've served together, but now that's expanding to other centers in the area. Like we know who's good at events and who's really good at building a medical advisory board and which person is really good at mobile. And John is is typically the best at business. So tell us some of the things that you see in pregnancy centers as being like big pitfalls in the business world, just over and over again. Or things that people struggle with that they're not managed, they're having a hard time managing.

SPEAKER_07 30:51

Well, I think, oh man. So a couple of things. I think culturally, I mean, there is there's a culture. No matter what organization you're in, no matter how good it runs or how bad it runs, there is a culture. And what I've realized is that we take that for granted in a lot of our pregnancy centers. We don't, we don't understand how important it is, and we don't understand what's available to us to affect the culture within the organization. I know, like for for me, one of the things that I've seen a lot is so this pregnancy center help, it is a ministry by you for other people. You're you're there to minister to people who are going through an unplanned career. It's not a ministry for you. And sometimes we we get that confused. A lot of people are in the pregnancy help world because they may have had their own story in the past, and this helps them to maybe find closure. It helps them to heal and all the which is fine. I mean, it's it you should be ministered to when you're in ministry, but that's not the focus. That's not what it's about. It's about you providing ministry for other people, not being ministered. So that's part of the culture. If that's not if that's not in place. I remember a guy who ran a Christian camp who told me a story about how in the summertime, like when he first took over, he would go out, it'd be like seven o'clock at night in August. And there were signs up, like there were people in the pool, but there were signs up saying the pool was closed. So he went and inquired about it one time, and he goes, like to the director and said, Well, what's going on? I mean, and the pool's closed, I see people in there, and what's going on? And and and the response was, Well, that's that's our time. That's staff time. You know, we we worked all day, seven o'clock at night. We go home, we get dinner, we want to go to the pool. So we close the pool to the campers so that the staff can enjoy the pool. And that's an example of what I'm talking about. This this is this camp is a ministry for other people. It's not for you, it's not for staff. I think I think that's one. The other thing that I've seen too is a lack of succession plans. Um, you have directors that have been either in for a short time or a long time, but there's really no one else lined up to like if there's an illness, if there's an injury, if there's there, if if there's a retirement or if somebody leaves, there's that that having that person who's ready to step in and lead is is often lacking. And and that brings me to developing your second chairs. Um, you know, those people who are are leaders within your organization, but they're not the main leader. They're second second-tier leaders. They need you. If you're a leader, they need you. They need they need your development, they need your guidance. They want they they need you to invest in them and to help sharpen their skills um so that they are more effective in their current role, but then able to maybe step up and take more. So uh leading from the second chair is is a book that I that I've leaned on heavily, and it's required reading for a lot of people that I work with. You know, financial maturity and understanding trends and things like that is something that a lot of people could benefit by some mentoring when it comes to being able to read financial reports. And I had early in my career, I had a business owner tell me, he goes, John, if you can read a profit and loss statement, and if you can learn how to manage with a by using a profit and loss statement, you can manage any business. And he really helped me to understand what it is to to take deep dives into your financials and things like that, and how to how to notice trends. And that's something that I think um a lot of people would benefit from. And then the final thing would be you know, risk taste, risk taking. Um a lot of pregnancy center directors um don't like risk, and that there's a lot of various reasons for that. It might be the way that their board govern governs, and um, it could just be because their own lack of experience in business, but there's a lot of a lot of um pregnancy center leaders and leadership governance that is really opposed to taking taking risk. And it's it's that's foreign to me. I mean, I thought I thought that's what we were supposed to do to grow was was take risk, but I found out that that's not something that is um easily digestible in the pregnancy center world. Although it's it's changing. It's definitely changing. I don't I don't know, Sarah. What do you I mean, do you have a comment on that?

SPEAKER_08 35:42

I what do you think about it? There's I think there's a lot of things that lead into that. One of them, and this is my situation, I've never done anything else other than run a pregnancy center. Like I've literally have one job on my resume, which is not really typical. Um, so I don't have any business experience to lean on as to say what's normal in HR or what's normal on a finance report. Like I've only done nonprofit. And a lot of pregnancy center leaders are coming to this work from their own, like because they've been through an experience or because they felt a calling, and all of those things are so important, but it means that you don't have, you don't have that what's normal to lean on. And so I know when I first started as director, I was like 25. And um, one of my staff members had been in corporate America for years, I mean decades. She was like the only woman in the C-suite in her business, and she had run HR. And she would come in every morning and sit with me and tell like tell me what to do because I didn't know what to do. But I didn't have a clue how to run an organization. And then she would go back out of my office and to do her job like that didn't, that meeting never occurred. Like nobody, nobody ever heard from her that we did this. Um, and a lot of people don't have that. They don't have anyone to like lean on to call and say, is this normal? Like, is this what this is, is this how business place business works? Is this how workplaces work? Um, and it's I think it's a huge detriment to pregnancy health because you've got people who are trying very hard to do the right thing and they want to help people and they want to help women, but they don't necessarily have the tools.

SPEAKER_06 37:15

Yeah, I agree. That was it. You just agree with me? Okay. I don't even know what to do. That's never happened before. This is a this is a banner moment, Jacob.

SPEAKER_08 37:33

And you get to witness it. So tell us we talked a little bit about finances. I get excited um when I get to ask John about finances because I'm not good at it. I mean, not really I don't think I'm very good at it. But um, what are some like what are some things that Survive Point offers to help pregnancy centers that you think are different or we know are different from maybe the average consulting group?

SPEAKER_07 37:55

Yeah. Well, to start off, I think you know, we offer traditional consulting packages, you know, like you know, it's very so very common, right? Strategic planning, board development, right, management, you know, um, mentoring, things like that. Those are those are very common things. Um, but I think one of the things that sets us apart is that um in addition to those things, what we really like to do is do a diagnostic for pregnancy centers. So let's just say a pregnancy water center wants to go from a pregnancy resource center to a pregnancy medical center. That's great. It's great work. And we can help, we can definitely help with that. We know we know how to get you from one point to the to the next. But the thing that we want to do first is let's do a diagnostic. So let's look at the organization, let's look at your county, let's see what the needs are, then let's go in your organization, let's look at the board, let's look at governance. You know, how mature is that layer. So there's like layers that all work together. So governance is a big one. And then financial clarity is another one. Do we know how to read financial reports? Typically, I mean, my experience has been as I talk to people around the country, is is like when you have a board meeting, the board treasurer comes in, they have one, two, three reports, they pass them all out, everybody's eyes glaze over, and the treasurer says, Hey, we're in great shape. And everybody says, Great, we're in good shape. What's next on the agenda? I try to I try to help um boards and executive directors understand financial reports, how to read them, how to identify trends, how to realize if you only increased your recurring donors by 20%, that will fix your budget deficit. If you could increase it by 25%, you're no longer relying, you're no longer an event-driven organization, which a lot of events, a lot of organizations are, and you guys both know this. Like if you miss, if you miss a walk, if you miss a gala, you miss a baby bottle campaign, that throws your whole budget out of whack for the entire year. And you cannot miss those events. Well, that I would call that an event-driven organization. So, what we like to do is go in and help with financial clarity understand how to get over that hurdle. So now when you have an event, it's not to make payroll, it's to invest into your programming, into your future. And then we look at culture. That's another thing. So we diagnose that. We diagnose that. So we'll do surveys for the staff and the board to see if everybody's in alignment. A lot of times you'll see the board answers things one way and the staff answers it another way. Same set of questions, but they answer them differently differently. And that tells us, that helps us to open up the open up the book and really understand the story behind a center and help them come together and unify as as the ultimate goal is to serve men and women better. So the final, the pinnacle to that piece in the diagnostic is programming. So we like to see like um how satisfactory is our services that we offer. You know, how do the clients view it? How does the staff view it? Are we meeting the needs that the gap, um, that the gaps that have been shown to us by this um intelligence brief that we did? So diagnosis, diagnostics, I think, is one thing that Thrive Point um is a lot different than maybe some of the other consulting firms. Is like we're we're all quick to say, yeah, I can help you with whatever you want, but what we like to do is say, yeah, what we we we will help you with that, but let's slow down and understand um the why behind what we want to do to improve. And I think that that's I don't know, I don't know if that answers your question or not. It felt like it did.

SPEAKER_08 42:02

Yeah, no, it does. I agree. No, I think what um what helps is when and and I did this, I did this when I started here as a director. Um, and again, it wasn't me, it wasn't my own wisdom. It was talking to people who had done been in the business world and knew it. And my first thought was, man, we got to raise more money. How do I raise more money? And the answer to that isn't raise more money. The answer was let's fix our, let's go down and and dig out the foundation and see what's going on. Like, how do we build our board up? How do we build our staff up? How do we make sure that we have the right people in the right seats? And um, I think it's really easy to to focus on the presenting issue, which is usually money. I mean, right? Like most pregnancy centers would say, well, if we have more money, we'd be fine. Um, but that's I don't think that's really the answer. You know, we have to look and say, what are what's our foundation? Um, where are we, where do we have gaps? Where do we have issues? Where do we have concerns? How do we repair those issues or concerns? And then we'll be in a healthy place so that we can grow and we can manage more money in a way that honors God and honors our donors.

SPEAKER_07 43:09

Yeah. And then, like, what is your vision too? Like as a leader, what's your vision for your center as a board? You know, what what is what is the vision? Where do you want to go? So I can remember years ago, um, uh our board member insisted that we have this consultant come in and do strategic planning. It's like, well, can we talk about what our vision is first? I mean, maybe we should talk about that before we have a strategic plan. No, no, this person's really good. You want them to come in and do strategic planning. So they did this SWOT analysis, you know, your strengths, your weakness, your opportunities, threats. And I was sitting there going through this, and I'm just like shaking my head, Jacob, Sarah. It's like, why are we talking? You don't even know where we want to go, and you're you're talking about. What our strengths like, shouldn't we be talking like what are our strengths that are gonna help us achieve our goals? What are our weaknesses that are gonna like our strengths? We were really good at writing letters, but that had nothing to do with being accredited as an ambulatory healthcare facility. So it's like you know, you want to know what your vision is, you want to be able to to to cast that. And I think that's something that's very important because then everything else, everything else comes together. Um as you're all working together um toward towards that vision. You know, where where where there is no vision, the people perish. And I think if you can't state your your vision and your mission clearly easily and effectively, um it's very difficult to bring in any consultant for any other for any other purpose.

SPEAKER_08 44:48

Well, and one other thing I think TariPoint does really well is the relational piece and that's staying in touch with pregnancy centers after. So one of the things that I hear from other centers, um, and it's actually not something I've dealt with because we have this, we have one consultant. Um he's used to run a pregnancy center in Michigan, and he's just worked with us for years. And so I didn't have this issue, I didn't realize how prevalent it was. But a lot of centers struggle with this sort of like shot in the arm consultant. Like you come in and you do the board training and then they're gone. And I mean, you can call them, you can maybe ask a question or whatever. Um, but when we were really struggling when I first started in 2014, it was really helpful to say, hey, this guy that you've met that we've worked with consistently for months and months and eventually years, this is what he thinks about this particular situation. Um so it's not like we did two days of of retreat and planning and now we have to like remember all of that and kind of keep the momentum going for an indefinite period of time.

SPEAKER_07 45:46

Well, Sarah, how many people do you talk to that have a consultant in and then a month or two later they're all sitting in a staff meeting scratching their head like what were we supposed to do?

SPEAKER_08 45:57

Right. Well, either what were we supposed to do or and and this can happen with staff and board, people are like, Well, we don't want to do that. So like they all agree to it when the consultant was in the room, and then the consultant goes home and they're like, We're not doing that. That's not how we operate. And then you slide back into that dysfunction that you were trying to get out of in the first place.

SPEAKER_07 46:14

Yeah. So one of the things that Thrive Point does is we always will have a 30-day, 60-day, 90-day, 180-day follow-up to make sure that we're staying on track from what we all agreed that we were going to do. And then I'm always available. Like I people can just pick pick up the phone and call. I mean, everybody does it all day long anyway. I mean, if you're gonna be doing it for a living, if you're gonna be doing it as a consultant, you may as well answer the phone when somebody calls. I mean it's really not a big deal, but it's helpful to know that if you have a question, you can call. Like you don't have to go through another engagement again. I mean, you know, I'm here to help you achieve the goal. I mean, we'll do that by maybe having a two-day session or in your center, maybe doing monthly conference calls, but the goal is to reach the goal. I mean, that's that's what we're that's what the target is to reach the goal. So whatever we have to do to get there, I mean, we'll do an initial planning, we'll meet so many times, but if that's not enough, we're gonna do whatever we have to do to reach the goal. That's what's most important to me. It's effectiveness.

SPEAKER_08 47:25

So if a center wants to get in touch with you or talk to you about what ThrivePoint offers, how would they do that?

SPEAKER_07 47:31

Well, there's a couple of ways. So you can visit our website, you can make an appointment right on our website, it's very easy to do. Our phone numbers are there. Um so it's thrivepointconsulting.org is is our web address. Um, we're certainly on Facebook and some other social media platforms as well. Um, but you can always email me. It's John at thrivepointconsulting.org. Or you can email me directly. Um so you can you can do that, and then I'll I'll certainly give you my phone number if you want to. Um but um really easy to get a hold of and easy to talk to.

SPEAKER_08 48:10

Well, thanks for joining us for the very first Sarah Bowen hosted pro life team podcast. Really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yeah, thank you, Sarah. And and for those who are trying to email us on, it's J-O-N with no H. I guess.

SPEAKER_08 48:23

Yeah, no H.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Yeah, at and um Yeah, thank and and um John, how many pregnancy clinics do you have you helped with uh consulting? No. Several? Sounds like it does.

SPEAKER_08 48:39

I don't it's hard to count, I think, because there's um John's kind of a softy, so he does a lot of stuff without tagging. So if you go back through his history and you look at how many centers he's helped, it's probably a much higher number than over how many years might that span.

SPEAKER_07 48:54

Well, for officially for Thrive Point, it's been less than a year. Okay, but for you. So I I I decided to set out um to do that and and step away from the pregnancy center operations because I really felt like um a lot of reasons, but one is I think that that is a is really a big need. It's a need that leaders in pregnancy centers need that guidance. And you know, Jacob, even with what you do, um how many people struggle with how to find a marketing firm and what do they do about their website?

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Almost all of that. Yeah, almost every pregnancy clinic um struggles with that at at some point, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:35

Yeah, um so I I just know I know I knew that that was a big need and I was just ready. And I think a lot of times we hold on to our positions longer than we need to. I mean, our pregnancy center, the one that I ran anyway, was was set to go. Um but there's really not much more that I needed to do. We we had an OBGYN on staff, we had accreditation, we were doing full services, we were moving into early maternal health care. I mean the stage the stage was set, we financially sound, money in the bank, um decent revenue, but expenses were under control.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

So, John, why why might a pregnancy clinic director want or need to read the book Leading from the Second Chair?

SPEAKER_07 50:22

Well, I I think it's invaluable for for two reasons. So when you s you hear leading from the second chair, it almost sounds like second chair leaders. It sounds like your number two or your number three in your organization. And and it is, but what it does is it helps that first chair leader, the executive director, understand um the mindset of those leaders that directly report to them. Their dreams, their passions, what they're capable of doing, if you could just unlock them and help them to step up and see outside their own silo, their own department, and be able to look across the organization and give them that freedom to lead there, um, to speak, to speak into it, um, to take ownership of the entire organization. And leading from the second chair really helps um number one leaders uh understand that dynamic and helps them to bring that out in their people because it's very important that you know you you can't just lead it by yourself. You need other people to support you, you need other people to be able to take on the task, you need other people to care about what's going on. If there's a department in your organization that's struggling a little bit, um maybe they need some extra help. And you need other leaders to be able to say, you know what, I have time, I'm gonna go help. Um so you just get more value out of your staff when everybody takes ownership and feels a part of it. So I think it I think it's a great book for unlocking that. It helps Sarah.

SPEAKER_08 51:59

It did. I think it can be easy for a pregnancy center or for any organization really, that especially one that's focused on people, um, to think well if we're not directly helping a client, then we're not doing the right thing. But you there goes my internet again. I'm sorry guys.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

It'll it'll be okay, it uploads at the end.

SPEAKER_08 52:16

So Okay. Um so to think like, hey, if I'm not if I'm not working directly with a client, I'm not really doing my job or I'm not really providing the mission. Um, but we have to also invest in our team and understanding like how they're working together and how they're interacting with one another and with you and with donors and with the community and with clients and all of these sorts of things. Yeah, that's a good I I will be honest though, I read the book because I'm like a nerd and I read the entire book before we started. Um and going through it as a study was much more helpful than just reading the book.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Awesome. All right, so so John, where have you seen God's fingerprints in this pro-life journey that you've been on?

SPEAKER_07 52:57

Oh my goodness. Or what's Jacob?

SPEAKER_01 52:59

That's the first story that comes to mind, because obviously there's lots of fingerprints.

SPEAKER_07 53:02

Let me just say, like, I so I've been a believer since I was in my teens. I got really serious.

SPEAKER_08 53:08

How many years is that? Since you were in your teens.

SPEAKER_07 53:11

I got really serious about it when I was in my mid-20s.

SPEAKER_08 53:15

That would have been like 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_07 53:19

Um so but but but anyway, I've seen more miracles. I've seen the invisible hand of God show up more in these last seven years of my life than my entire life prior to that. So I know, for example, when I first took over, we had a pregnancy, not a pregnancy, but a a maternity home. But it was very dysfunctional in my opinion. The women were coming in and we were giving them a place to stay, but 18 months, 24 months later, when they left, they were the same person on the exit as they were in the entry. And I felt to myself, I mean, Lord, we're not really doing them a service. All we're doing is we're plucking them out of the environment that's put them in the situation, giving them a place to stay, and then putting them right back where they came from. Only to repeat. And that's happened. We've had repeat customers in our maternity home. So very early on, I I decided that we were going to change that program. We were gonna do better. We were gonna make it a program that was gonna be transformative for the women who were staying with us. And I'll tell you, Jacob, we we made that decision, we had that vision, we started having initial conversations about the intake process and the rules and all that kind of stuff. And wouldn't you know it, within the week or two from we start time we started having those meetings, a woman shows up at my door one day and she asks if she can talk to me. She comes in and she goes, John, she said, if I gave you $250,000, could you upgrade our maternity home program? It's like Yeah. Um but then it gets even better. Three or four weeks later, one of my staff members comes in and she says she's about to retire. She's gonna move out to Illinois with live with her family. And um I said, Well, listen, if there's anything I can do for you, let you know. And she goes, Let me know. Because we work really good together. She said, Well, I know you know a lot of people. Do you know any good realtors that you can recommend? I said, Actually, I know quite a few realtors. What what's what's on your mind? She goes, Well, we need to sell our home. I said, Well, can you tell me a little bit about it and then I could tell you which realtor I would recommend? So she goes on to say it was a doctor's office with a residence attached. It's got twelve rooms, four bathrooms, and an office like right attached to the building. I said, Can I come and see it? So we go over there and I start walking through this thing and I'm counting all the women and their babies that could stay here. And I think, my goodness, this thing, this is this was years ago. I said, you know, our budget's 250 grand. If this this house is probably worth 350, I'm gonna have to raise money to be able to buy this. So so get this. Her husband and uh and her talk about it, and they come back to me in a couple days and say, We got the house appraised, it's three hundred thousand dollars, but we're gonna sell it to you for 225 and donate the rest. So now we have enough money to pay cash and we have $25,000 to do a remote. That's God. That that is God, and I can't I can't tell people enough that when God gives you a vision, start walking it out. I mean, you pray, but yes, but you're not gonna know if there's 10 steps to get from here to there, or 10 steps to get from this floor to the next floor, just start you don't need to see all ten. Just start walking it out, and you will see God honor that in a faithful way and open doors that you never would have imagined before. And I can just tell you that over and over and over again, our staffing needs, um, you know, God fills these needs. We have finally got the maternity home all ready to go. We were ready to open, but we didn't have a director to run it. So, man, I said, I don't know how to run a maternity home. So, what are we gonna do? I spoke at a church one day, and at the end of the service, a woman comes up to me and she goes, Oh, I love what you do. I do you have any volunteer positions open? I said, Well, yeah, what what's your skill set? What are you doing? She goes, Well, I have two master's degrees one in social work and one in um public administration. I think we gotta talk. Well, she ended up being our director of our maternity home. It's just God opens that's just a maternity home. We'll talk about other stuff later, but Sarah can tell you. Full of miracles.

SPEAKER_08 57:58

Well, and I think we all see that. I think every center sees that. It just God loves what we do and he loves the children and the families that we help and he makes it work when it seems like it shouldn't work. And um it's incredible. Like I I just think it's incredible to see, and it all of us have those stories, little ones, big ones. Um and it's just God loves what we're doing and he wants to be he wants to be part of it and we want him to be part of it.

SPEAKER_06 58:23

Wow. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. It is.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Well, yeah, and God's not you know, you ever thought about like, you know, here we are, 2026, you know. Sometimes we think we're at the end or in the middle, but we're probably somewhat at the beginning of God working. I mean, it's hard to measure things, but you know, God's probably just as much ahead of us as there is behind us.

SPEAKER_06 58:47

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Well, so um well, John, would you close this in prayer and with expectation that those who are pr you know listening will will join in and um and before we do, Sarah, what what you know, what do you what would you like to include as a part of our you know prayer? What would you suggest we pray about?

SPEAKER_08 59:10

I think it's and this might be a little bit too like vague maybe, but um just what when John was talking about like the Dobbs decision and it was a good thing and and it was amazing. It was in it was just the best thing that could have happened. Um but it also brought a lot of problems. And so I think that something that we all need as pregnancy centers is just wisdom to know how that decision has impacted and is continuing to impact our communities and how to address it. Um, we can't be stuck in the past and we can't be afraid to try something new and maybe fail. We can't wait for other organizations, whether it's other pregnancy centers or affiliates or whoever to tell us to do something. Um we need to be faithful and willing to take those first steps um and willing to to risk to take risks and willing to potentially have things just not work out and have to try again.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:03

Good luck getting that in over here. I got it. Okay. Should we pray?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:12

All right, Lord, I just want to thank you for this time together. Um it was it was a real treat for me and I just pray that it's a blessing on those who are listening. Um Lord, just like Sarah talked about, I pray that for all the leaders in the pregnancy center world and the pregnancy help world that would just um have a clear vision from you. Um help them to recognize when you open doors and help them help them to recognize when when you're closing the door. Father, we just always want to be attentive to um your move and to your speaking um to us through your spirit. Um I pray for the Pro Life Team podcast that this platform would continue to grow and that more and more people would get to hear um life-affirming things, but things that are very practical for them in what they do on a day-to-day basis. Just lift up all those leaders out there um who who just need you.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:16

In Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:17

Amen.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:18

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

Amen.