Funding a pregnancy help ministry is a formidable task and often the source of great trepidation. Pregnancy help personnel frequently find themselves in the position of wearing many hats with responsibilities for which they may or may not have been adequately prepared.
Whether coming in the door of their pregnancy help organization with development in their job description or not, serving in pregnancy help can also entail having a hand the fundraising effort while serving in other ways.
Heartbeat International offers an abundance of resources, training, and tools to form pregnancy help personnel for fundraising success, a signature offering being Heartbeat’s annual Pregnancy Help Institute.
Heartbeat International is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations both globally and in the U.S., with affiliate pregnancy centers, pregnancy medical clinics, non-profit adoption agencies, and maternity homes in more than 90 countries.
Heartbeat’s Pregnancy Help Institute (PHI) has provided professional training to thousands of pregnancy help leaders through an intensive week of executive-caliber instruction since 2007.
Tracks offered at PHI include Development, New Director, and Leadership, and the LOVE Approach Ultrasound Clinical, offered for ultrasonography professionals. In addition to the rigorous training and content, PHI provides the opportunity for pregnancy help personnel to connect with one another, have fellowship, and develop lasting relationships. Faith and prayer are infused throughout the week.
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Attendees of the Development Track at this year’s PHI held in Columbus, Ohio, remarked on the benefits they found at the intensive training, expressing how they would leave equipped to return to their centers ready to make a difference in their ministry.
Stefy Valencia is the Executive Director of Immokalee Pregnancy Center in Immokalee, Fla.
When she first started with the center, she was the Client Advocate before then becoming Center Director and now Executive Director.
She had attended the New Director Track in 2020 when Pregnancy Help Institute was presented virtually due to Covid. With development now under her purview she saw value in attending PHI again with this new focus.
“I've never done this before with fundraising and development and I was just feeling like I need the tools, I need to learn,” Valencia told Pregnancy Help News. “I need to feel more equipped to be able to do this, to honor God in an excellent way for Him.”
“And I need this for our community, for our center, to learn,” she added. “You can't ever stop learning. You have to have the desire to learn and to do better. So that's why I came.”
The center’s previous CEO, who had worked in pregnancy help for 32 years and has now moved on to be Board Treasurer, had come to PHI and encouraged Valencia to attend.
“She was the one who from the beginning was like, ‘Stefy, I really want you to go to this,’” Valencia said. “And she always said that was one of the most powerful trainings, the Pregnancy Help Institute, because you're getting to focus (on learning) and you’re learning from the best.”
“So, she highly recommended it to me,” she said. “Let's make this happen. Let's have you go out this year.”
Midway through the week Valencia shared her reaction to the institute.
“This is such a huge blessing,” she said. “I feel like I've just had so many ‘aha moments’ and I'm like, wow, now I know what I need to work on, and I feel empowered.”
“I think that's just the best way to say it, I feel empowered,” said Valencia. “I can do this. Here are the tools. Now when I go home, here are my projects, here's what I'm going to work on.”
Part of the institute involves assessments of personal strengths.
Valencia said this was a blessing not just for her, but for her staff and for her to understand her staff. She said she loved how the training was tackling “so many big, important subjects.”
Valencia said she had also loved sitting down at lunch and breaks, meeting new people and hearing their story, what's happening in their ministry, “and just picking each other's brains.”
“And again, just how beautiful it's to be with others who are in this mission with you,” Valencia said. “It is just a reminder, we need to be praying for each other because what we're doing, it's going to change the world and the generations to come forever. So how beautiful to be able to spend time with others as well.”
Asked what she would tell someone considering attending the institute, she said, “You need this. Your center needs this.”
“Whether it's learning something new or a refresher, this is going to change your ministry forever,” Valencia said. “And that's what I'm feeling right now; that this is going to be a tremendous blessing.”
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It already had been for her at that point, she said.
“I can't wait to go home and share this with the staff and the board,” said Velencia. “So do it. Make the arrangements. Make the effort. God's going to bless you for your obedience in doing what He's called you to do by equipping yourself to do it even better for having His kingdom.”
Ray Campbell is Executive Director with Life Choices Pregnancy Care Center in Columbus, Miss., and has the unique status of having attended each of the PHI tracks. He took part in the Development Track again this year, happy to learn from an updated curriculum and faculty.
Campbell said he knew he would learn something new.
“I'm excited, learning a lot, kind of a refresher,” he said. “A lot of things are motivating me to go back next week and get started again with development.”
“So yeah, I'm still learning,” Campbell told Pregnancy Help News.
Parts of the training have prompted him to take a renewed look at his approach to development, and in addition to learning new things, it has been a reminder for him to get back elements that were beneficial that he may have gotten away from doing.
“So even though it was my second time through Development, I’m still learning a lot,” he said, “and it’s a refresher to remind myself, ‘Hey, I need to get back to doing this.’”
“So, I'm super excited to be back in Development this year,” Campbell said.
Lori Greathouse is Marketing and Development Director at Crossroads Pregnancy Care Center in Charleston, W.Va. She has been in her role for one year, and in that time has had only an online seminar training. Her Executive Director had come to PHI a few years ago when she was a new director and encouraged Greathouse to attend.
“She said it was the best,” Greathouse told Pregnancy Help News. “So, she highly recommended that I get to come this year.”
Asked her thoughts on the training as the week was in progress, Greathouse said, “I am overwhelmed, but it's a good overwhelmed. I'm looking forward to looking through everything when I get back.”
Greathouse was a teacher formerly, and recalled the training they had every summer.
“I told my husband last night, this is the best training I feel like I've ever gotten,” Greathouse said. “It's practical, this to the point. There's no fluff at all.”
She loved that it's targeted, convening in smaller groups focused on their respective areas.
“There's no waste of time, and that's why it's overwhelming, because it all applies to what I'm doing,” she said. “So much stuff. And the ideas, and it's just a great group of trainers. I've just been really impressed.”
Greathouse noted the use of the Strength Finders assessment in the institute.
“Not only did it help me figure out why I do the things I do, the way I do them, but now I'm thinking about the team and the office dynamics and what makes them tick,” said Greathouse. “I am more aware of that and thinking through that as far as clients are concerned.”
“And now thinking about donors, cultivating the relationships with donors was a huge ‘aha moment’ for me,” she continued. “I love to cultivate relationships with clients because I deal with clients too, but I didn't think about donors in that way, and I need to be.”
“It helps me love my neighbor better by being intentional about building those relationships and trying to understand where someone's coming from so we can meet them where they are,” she said, “and that's donors included, and try to figure out what they need as far as from us in the ministry as a partner. So, that's just been huge for me.”
Greathouse said this was her biggest PHI takeaway.
“Cultivating donor relationships that are meaningful to me,” she said. “It's always been kind of shallow compared to client relationships, and so this has helped me think better about how to do that.”
Asked what she might tell someone who was pondering coming to PHI, Greathouse said, “I would say it's definitely worth whatever effort you need, whatever hoop you have to jump through to do it, because if nothing else, it kind of reminds you why you're doing what you're doing in first place.”
“It's a time to just sit back and think about this as God's work, and be refreshed, and how He provides,” she said. “And even this training, I feel like it's been a Godsend.”
Pregnancy Help Institute 2025 is scheduled for July 21-25, 2025, with a new Media Track planned along with the existing institute tracks.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
