Laura Flanders is Pro-Voice!

Laura Flanders, host of GRITtv, took a public stand as Pro-Voice yesterday.  In her latest feature she encourages her audience to “Spark a Movement that’s Pro-Voice!” Laura continues, “Talk may not heal all that ails us – and our politics – but it’s certainly true that where abortion’s concerned, we could do with less grandstanding about “gag rules” and more honest listening – and talk.”

Check out Laura’s interview above with Exhale’s Executive Director, Aspen Baker, and Natalia Koss-Vallejo of MTV’s ”No Easy Decision“; and give thanks to Laura in the comments for her public stand alongside all women who have had abortions.

Keep the Momentum Growing: Your investment in Exhale means more influencers like Laura taking a public stand for a Pro-Voice future; and more opportunities for leaders like Natalia to share their stories. We need your partnership today to raise $15,000 by August 19th. If you’ve never given to Exhale before, your gift will be matched for a limited time, up to $2,500, by a long-time donor.

There is no better time to support the Pro-Voice Momentum!

As this exciting movement expands, we each have our own opportunity to grow the Pro-Voice message and keep women and men with personal abortion experiences at the center of their own stories. How will you use your influence to grow the Pro-Voice Momentum? What story would you want to tell?

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You Can Accelerate the Pro-Voice Momentum

Dear Friends & Pro-Voice Allies,

There’s nothing quite like a partnership with MTV to get the word out!

Months after we worked with MTV on their groundbreaking special “No Easy Decision;” months after the Pro-Voice community stood together in peace taking a public stand besides the young women sharing their stories through “16 & Loved;” and months after the New York Times reported on our efforts and helped share our story… the word keeps spreading.

Our message is out. If you have a personal experience with abortion, Exhale is a community that welcomes you with love and respect.

Now, let’s work together to make sure this message reaches the people who need it most: young women and men with personal abortion experiences. Exhale has been working with our technical partners to develop a brand-new online public platform that will engage our growing community of Pro-Voice peacemakers. We expect to launch the first phase in the fall, with more phases launched throughout the next year. You’ve probably already noticed some changes in the way we communicate with you, such as receiving email from Exhale, rather than just me. Thanks to the support of people like you who have helped to sustain and grow Exhale, we have been able to invest in new leaders and now, there are more voices, ambassadors, and peacemakers speaking for the Pro-Voice movement than ever before!

Our use of technology and social media is expanding along with the Pro-Voice movement, because we know how important technology is for our community of women who have had abortions.  Technology is critical to our ability to tell our own stories with abortion and be heard with dignity and respect.

We need your support with this next phase.  We are about to launch our new platform for online engagement with the Pro-Voice movement. To be successful, we need to raise an additional $15,000 by August 19th.  I’m hoping you will jump in.

Can you make a donation to Exhale today and accelerate the Pro-Voice Momentum?

With your support, we will reach more young women and men with our message of love and respect.  Our new online tools will seed and grow new Pro-Voice Ideas; leverage and expand Pro-Voice Innovations; grow and support new Pro-Voice Leadership; and strengthen the impact of our Pro-Voice Community so that our love grows more powerful than anger and hate.

“16 & Loved” wasn’t just a one-time project; it points the way forward, demonstrating the possibilities for transforming the culture around abortion. You know that Exhale has a long history of taking important risks and producing exceptional results: from the original launch of the talkline to our latest partnership with MTV.  Now is the time to take another leap and keep the momentum going. We are ready to do it again. Are you?

Please donate to Exhale today.

Aspen Baker

Executive Director at Exhale

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My Magical X-Ray Goggles by Board Member Julie Davidson-Gómez

*Guest Post by Board Member, Julie Davidson-Gómez*

Leading Exhale’s year-end fundraising effort is a lot like having magical x-ray goggles. From my vantage point, I get to see the inner workings of our campaign in amazing and intricate detail. Every day, I witness the little victories and milestones that occur when a volunteer steps out of their comfort zone and reaches out to you to connect, share, and inspire.

Joining the fundraising team requires a big step, and sometimes a leap of faith, toward connecting our individual stories and beliefs to a larger organizational vision: that of a thriving pro-voice movement, financially supported by women and men who care just as much about post-abortion wellbeing, and who share our dreams for a future free from abortion stigma.

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Initiative & Resilience: A Volunteer’s View by Nat Okey

*Guest Blogger*

Nat Okey, Exhale Volunteer:

Aspen Baker recently wrote, “Transforming hearts and minds is not the job of our government and abortion stigma is not reduced through elections.  Changing culture requires people.  It takes you and me.  Our friends and family.  Our neighbors and co-workers.”

It also takes Exhale volunteers.  As volunteer counselors we create safe and sacred spaces where women and men create their own personal narratives about their abortion experience.  When we volunteer, we commit to hearing every caller’s story, to be with people who are struggling, and to validate their feelings and help them to see and recognize their own inner strengths.  Though we are volunteers, our work is neither easy nor free.

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We are a Next Generation Organization by Board Member, Julie Davidson-Gómez

*Guest Post by Board Member, Julie Davidson-Gómez*

One of the leadership roles I most enjoy at Exhale is chairing our Fundraising Committee. This summer, I made a personal gift of $525, and personally have helped raise over $6,000 toward our goal of $15,000.

I want to share with you why I love to fundraise for Exhale.

This morning, as you read this, I’m honored to share a podium with four inspiring “Next Generation” leaders. CompassPoint invited me to share my Exhale board story at their annual Nonprofit Day Conference. They wanted to know what set Exhale’s board of directors apart from the status quo nonprofit board, and to hear how Exhale is Next Gen.

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A Special Message from Erika Jackson, Volunteer

My name is Erika Jackson and I have been a volunteer at Exhale for two-and-a-half years. I started as a talkline counselor and I’ve been a moderator in the Online Community since it launched last year.  I know how important Exhale is to the women we serve, which is why I just donated $50 to celebrate our 5th Anniversary of expanded service.

I’m writing to invite you join me by making your own contribution to Exhale today. We are just $2,000 away from reaching our $15,000 goal, and I know that with your donation, we will ge there by Tuesday, August 31st!  Every donation makes a big difference.

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Meet Julie Evans

Several weeks ago I received an email from Julie Evans.  It is with her written permission that I share her email with you, our most important supporters, today:

“Dear Aspen,

I got pregnant in December. The relationship I was in was not one that had a future, but still, having an abortion was not really the first thing that came to mind. I somehow wanted to ‘make it work.’ The guy I was with was not in any place to be part of the ‘making it work’ process, and I sorrowfully realized this over the course of a week. The complicated circumstances surrounding everything only made things worse, and I felt like I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I kept it a secret from most everyone, partly because I was ashamed that I had been behaving so recklessly in a certain sense, and partly because I felt like if I didn’t tell anyone, then it didn’t really happen.

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Five & Thriving: Please Donate to Exhale Today!

Please join me in celebrating a very special anniversary.

2010 marks the 5^th Anniversary of our talkline’s expansion from a limited Bay-Area, bilingual service into a national, multilingual one that is available every day!

It is with the help of people like you – our supporters – that, five years ago, we were able to respond to demand from women and men throughout the United States seeking a safe place to talk after an abortion.  I write to invite you to make a special gift to Exhale in commemoration of this significant time in our history.

We grow Exhale and our free programs in direct response to the needs of our callers.  Part of what motivates and inspires us as an organization is finding new ways to respond to our callers’ needs with fresh ideas and innovative projects that make our pro-voice mission real in their every day lives.  Listening carefully to our callers over the last five-years of national, multilingual service has led Exhale to:

• Develop Post-Abortion E-Cards that help loved ones respectfully acknowledge the personal abortion experience of someone they care about.
• Grow an Online Community that facilitates supportive connections among women who have had abortions.
• Advocate for Social Science Research that deepens our understanding of the social and emotional experience of abortion.
• Create Storytelling Forums that ensure personal abortion stories are heard with dignity and respect.
• Provide Thought Leadership that offers our nation new opportunities to transform conflict and create abortion peace.

The reality is that at this exciting moment Exhale faces real challenges.  Our revenue from private foundations is down and our call volume is up. We are faced with the challenge of declining revenue and increasing demand.  Exhale is using this difficult financial time to be the organization we’ve always dreamed about becoming.  We are putting our organizational values and beliefs into practice and strengthening the culture (risk-taking, abundance, excellence) we have worked so hard to build.

Exhale is an organization of copious strengths and assets and with the generous contributions of people like you, we can leverage them in new, creative ways moving forward.  For every dollar Exhale receives as a donation, we turn it into $2.50 of volunteer service.  We more than double the value of your gift.  Over a third of our budget is contributed through the time our volunteers donate to our mission.

Please give generously today and help Exhale thrive for the next five.

We are so grateful for the support we have received since the day we first launched the talkline in 2002 and in the five years since we significantly expanded our service. We know that together with supporters like you we will thrive for the next five – and many more!  In commemoration of our 5^th Anniversary of listening to women from around the country (and beyond), in multiple languages, every day of the week, I invite you to support Exhale by making a special donation today.

Our goal is to raise $15,000 by August 31st. Help us reach our goal and make a donation today!

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We are a Learning Organization

I co-presented a session workshop – “Becoming a Learning Organization” – with Brian Talcott of the Center for Civic Partnerships (CCP) at The California Wellness Foundation’s (TCWF) conference on Organizational Learning and Evaluation in San Francisco last week.

Brian Talcott and me

Brian and I worked together when Exhale received TCWF-funded technical assistance from CCP back in 2006 and 2007.  With their support, Exhale was able to ratchet-up our evaluation practices and by working with top-notch evaluation experts, we began to consider methods and tools to measure Exhale’s impact on our culture change goals.

One of the many gifts we received through the program was learning that Exhale was, and always has been, a Learning Organization.  Here’s the theory:

According to LFA Group, a Learning Organization “uses evaluation as a fundamental strategy for gathering information for reflection, learning and growth in order to drive internal improvement.”

Michael O’Brien, an organizational consultant says that Learning Organizations “weave a continuous and enhanced capacity to learn, adapt and change into the fabric of its character and has values, policies, practices, programs, systems and structures that support and accelerate organizational learning.”

As the leader of Exhale, I have found becoming a Learning Organization to be very freeing.

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“How We Lead” by Exhale’s Board of Directors: Julie Davidson-Gomez, Jennifer Rudy and Susan Osborne

Serving on Exhale’s board provides a platform for each of us to develop and engage our strengths as we never imagined. Our members are all about midway through our second, three-year terms on the board, and in that time we’ve seen the organization mature from a local SF-Bay Area talkline service, to a national talkline whose volunteer and staff leaders set the tone for a new pro-voice dialogue on post-abortion wellness for women and their loved ones.

Over the years, as a board, we’ve matured too.

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