Tag Archives: Equipped for Life course

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10 Practical Tips for Leading a Campus Outreach

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I hope that as more groups purchase the Equipped for Life Course, they will be prepared to participate in more outreach events like polling tables. Having a strategic plan in mind and practical supplies on hand can help your event be a greater success. Speaking as the president of a Students for Life (SFL) group that does regular outreach, here are my ten tips:

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes.

#1: Code of Conduct Agreement

I highly recommend asking each volunteer to sign a code of conduct agreement prior to arriving at outreach so they know what sort of behavior is expected and prohibited. It can be as simple as a non-violence pledge and the information of an emergency contact. You’ll want to keep these forms in a folder or binder with you at the outreach site in case something goes amiss. It also makes it really easy to respond to angry pro-choice people that say we’re like people who bomb clinics. You can just say, “No, we aren’t,” but it’s more convincing to say, “No, we aren’t, in fact everyone from our club has signed a volunteer agreement stating that they are opposed to violence against abortion practitioners and their facilities.”

If it would help you get started, you can feel free to download the volunteer agreement ERI uses when leading outreaches and edit it however you see fit.

#2: Schedule Volunteer Shifts

You will need to have volunteers sign up for shifts throughout the day, preferably that overlap by 15-30 minute intervals so you can switch out gracefully. Keep in mind that you may run into a situation where several volunteers at a time will be in the middle of dialogues, so try to have as many people scheduled at the event as you can without creating a crowd around the table.

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Announcing Scholarships for Pro-Life Clubs!

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We have exciting news to share for pro-life high school and college clubs! As many of you know, ERI published the Equipped for Life Course last year. It’s designed to help pro-life clubs get trained in dialogue skills and the most persuasive pro-life arguments so they can change more minds and save more lives during their outreaches.

If you haven’t heard about the positive impact the course had on the University of Michigan club, you can check out their report here. (Short version: Their most timid members were begging for weekly outreaches after only completing the first two modules of the course!)

For those of you who are overwhelmed by the thought of fundraising, there is now another way you can get the course. ERI president Josh Brahm spent the last several months asking our donors to pay for scholarships so some pro-life clubs could take the course without spending a dime. We’ve already given six scholarships away, and as of today we still have the funds left for 68 scholarships!

If you’re interested in getting the Equipped for Life course for free, and you’re willing to commit to getting your club through the course and doing at least one outreach within three months, go to EqualRightsInstitute.com/Apply and fill out the quick application.

Do you know of a club that may be interested in this offer? Please send them a link to this offer! This course can really help a club change more minds about abortion and save more lives, and if they apply soon enough, they can get the course without spending a dime!

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A Look Back at 2016 and What We’re Doing Next!

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It has been a transformative year at Equal Rights Institute.

In our second full year as an organization we gave 27 speeches in Illinois, California, Missouri, Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, and Washington, DC! Thanks to some great logistical planning from Jacob Nels, we also did five full-day seminars in California, Michigan, and Virginia. All in all we trained approximately 1,377 people!

It’s easy to think of these people as statistics. We have gotten fantastic responses from the students we have spoken to. Here’s just one testimonial from Anthony Jones, the Vice President of Robinson Rams for Life, a high school Students for Life club that I spoke to recently while in the DC area:

Mr. Brahm brought clarity, enthusiasm, and a fresh perspective to our club in regards to the pro-life position. Although some of us had previous experience in defending life, the presentation enhanced everyone’s knowledge and gave us greater confidence to dialogue persuasively. Students came into the event with varying beliefs about abortion, but they all left with the common knowledge of a logical and charitable approach that championed equal rights. Once Mr. Brahm had concluded, one student exclaimed: ‘That was the best pro-life argument I’ve ever heard,’ already confirming that the presentation had made a tangible difference in equipping our club to accomplish its mission more effectively than ever before.

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Early Feedback on the Equipped for Life Course

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The Equipped for Life course has only been out for about four months, but we’re already getting a sense for how it’s helping the people who’ve taken it. 

My favorite bit of feedback we’ve received is from Rachel Crawford, the president of the University of Michigan Students for Life group. (Full disclosure, Rachel is also coming on staff next year, so she’s not unbiased, but her students are.)

One of the main concerns Tim and I had while creating this course was that people would take it, but wouldn’t then do the next step of talking to pro-choice people in their lives or during campus outreaches. What has happened with Rachel’s club gives me some hope that that’s not going to be a common problem.

This is how Rachel recently described the impact of the course on her club during an interview for the Equipped for Life podcast:

This was my students’ first exposure to Equal Rights Institute. They’re unanimously coming back to me and enthusiastically requesting we have more outreaches.

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We went out and did outreach all day on a Saturday recently. Even the shy and quiet students, after watching some of the course or completing the entire course, were coming up to me saying, “I’m really quiet and I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to have a conversation today. But I totally stepped out of my comfort zone, and I totally gave it a try, and oh my gosh, I’m so happy I did! Can we do this next week?”

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All of these students were super-excited. And we had the fortunate ability to have this outreach in the fall semester. We’ve had about 30 new students joining our club this year. The new students are telling me that “the dialogue tactics are helping me understand the proper mood and tone of the conversation. They’re making me feel more confident about opening a dialogue because I’ve learned about body language or learned about asking more clarification questions.”

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Then the more experienced students are like, “I’ve been reading apologetics books all through high school and I’m super-excited.” Those students are really refreshed by the materials and the actual content of the more advanced parts of the course.

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The Equipped for Life Course is Live!

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Just two months after starting Equal Rights Institute, Josh and Timothy Brahm gave their first seminar together on pro-life dialogue. In order for that to be possible, they had to very quickly take their growing body of original content and combine it with the most helpful tools they had learned from other pro-life leaders. From August 2014 to August 2016 only about four hundred individuals have had the opportunity to experience ERI’s full seminar in pro-life dialogue.

Until now.

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The Equipped for Life Course makes it possible for any individual or group to experience ERI’s pro-life dialogue training.

Learn what the ERI staff have learned about how to make the most of an opportunity to help someone change their mind about abortion.

Moving ERI’s training online has wonderful benefits other than making it possible to train thousands of pro-life advocates a year. Students will have the opportunity to revisit the training when their memories are failing them. They can watch or listen to the lessons over and over instead of having to attend a seven-hour seminar and only hear the content one time.

They can also continue to learn with and interact with the ERI staff directly through the exclusive podcast and forum.

Here’s what two people who attended ERI’s live seminar had to say:

“I love apologetics, and I have never heard such great methods and arguments as I did today. I especially appreciate your emphasis on being compassionate. I realized that I need to be more compassionate, listen, and treat people as human when I talk to them.” ~Meleah

“I think that this is the best, most productive, and most effective pro-life training I have been able to find. This seminar has changed me in that I have a marked increase in my confidence in these arguments. I really think I will be able to dialogue more effectively and more lovingly.” ~Sean

Want a preview of the course?

Here's a picture of what the top of the Modules page looks like when you log in.

Here’s a picture of what the top of the Modules page looks like when you log in.

 

Visit EquippedCourse.com to see a list of the modules and bonuses included in the course, read testimonials and an FAQ, and get instant access to the course!

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