In yesterday’s article, I made the assertion that even experienced marketing and sales professionals, who would habitually only invest in an opportunity based on quantitative numbers, have a tendency to throw that habit out when it comes to investing in pro-life pregnancy centers.
I think there are few, if any, for-profit investment opportunities that offer a pro-life individual the emotional fulfillment one can gain by investing in a business that saves human lives from the tragedy of abortion.
We are willing, and eager, to pay for that emotional fulfillment with our hard-earned money.
“You’ll Pay For That!”
But objectively speaking, using real numbers, not emotions, what is the measurable return we seek for our investments in pro-life pregnancy centers?
When I ask that question to pro-life philanthropists, the answer is clear: save babies’ lives from abortion.
Also clear is that pro-life philanthropists want pro-life pregnancy centers to save as many babies from abortion as possible, with the ultimate goal being saving all of them.
How to measure a center’s progress toward that objective?
Simply divide the number of women who changed their minds about abortion and chose life by the total combined number of decisions for life plus decisions for abortion.
The result of that calculation is otherwise known as market share.
When pro-life philanthropists invest based on their own emotions (paying for their own emotional fulfillment), instead of investing based on market share achievement, they end up ultimately paying for that decision (in a negative sense) by providing capital to a business that is not competitive, as measured by market share.
Our Personal Market Share Algorithm
Pro-life versus pro-abortion is a highly emotionally charged issue, whether philosophical arguments going back and forth daily in the press between pro-life advocates and abortion advocates, or whether daily individual decisions made by pregnant woman to choose life or choose abortion.
Human lives are at stake, right now.
That urgency can lead to an emotional decision based on a tendency to think, “investing in anything that claims to save lives from abortion is better than doing nothing.”
But is it really?
A decision to invest in a pro-life pregnancy center that doesn’t have a robust business plan that leads to long-term measurable market share gains, isn’t that like applying band aids rather than aiming to cure the underlying disease?
Pro-life philanthropists need something to inoculate them from investing in pro-life pregnancy centers based primarily on emotion.
I propose the solution is a disciplined approach that is simple: say yes to investment when a center demonstrates measurable market share achievement, and say no to investment when a center demonstrates a lack of measurable market share achievement.
We each need that kind of emotionally detached market share algorithm to help us make better investment decisions – providing expansion capital to pro-life pregnancy centers that are winning, as measured by market share, and redirecting capital away from pro-life pregnancy centers that are losing, as measured by market share.
Regards,
Brett