CAPC leadership is resolved to grow, and build our movement. The work that needs to be done is immense. Our website and membership needed our attention, and we are facing additional web concerns. We are limited by the same things that limit all new organizations. CAPC focus is on what needs to be addressed, and how we can make the biggest impact in that need with the influence we have. Growing pains are hard to endure. But we are confident the investments we make now will establish CAPC for the long-term, and make the voice of the Pregnancy Center movement in California one that cannot be ignored.
Broken Tools – Website Membership
From our inception, CAPC is a membership organization. As a 501c6, we are a corporate membership organization. This means membership is held by your Pregnancy Center, and the Executive Director or President is your representative to CAPC. When our website was created, we utilized a simple and free membership plugin. This plugin has limitations, and one we did not recognize from the outset. CAPC requires an annual renewal to 1. affirm the affiliation standards of CAPC, and 2. allow for annual membership dues. With no expiration date on membership in our website, we were forced to dump the membership annually and ask our members to re-apply each year. 2020 is the year we determined to correct this problem on our site.
It turns our membership websites with an expiration date are not that common. Our website was developed and maintained by a staff member at one of our member organizations on a volunteer basis. Our need exceeded what was reasonable to ask of a volunteer. CAPC sought help from Wisdom Matrix who was a supporter and presenter of our Director Conference in 2019. Special attention was given to research membership plugins that were inexpensive and at the same time capable of addressing our need. Gary and Dana found Membership Works and installed it to our site. They were exceedingly patient as we ran into a couple of snags in getting our billing gateway operational. Additional research was required to search for an alternative to Paypal, since Membership Works required a Paypal Pro account. Dana found Stripe, and our membership is now run through there. All in all, Wisdom Matrix has established a new foundation for CAPC in our website. We are pleased to announce that Wisdom Matrix has also become an Affiliate Member of CAPC. They are ardent supporters of the work Pregnancy Centers do, and are proud to play their part in our mission! Wisdom Matrix is pleased to share website ideas and recommendations regularly on their calalliance Web Insights page.
Membership Features
Being able to renew memberships is the whole purpose for moving to Membership Works, but there are additional features as well. Each member organization has a profile. The content of the profile is reserved for those that are members. A list of members can be generated and made available within the membership areas of the site. Members can control their profile and listing from the settings. As of now, there is no listing within our website. CAPC leadership will discuss, and consider the will of our members before adding such a list to our site.
Membership Works also has an event feature that should allow us to manage future events including invitations, fees and RSVPs through the profile information. This can be convenient so membership and event fees can be added to the shopping cart. This plugin also has e-mail features that will allow us to communicate with our members more readily. These and several other features sound common place, however when they are not present, their absence is noticeable. Ultimately this new plugin serves to raise the professionalism of CAPC, and helps us build!
Web Concerns
Useful Membership Website Content
The calalliance.org webpage is growing. We are curious to know what website content you would like to see added to the site. CAPC leadership does not have time for content for content’s sake. We want to be intentional about what our members need, and what will be useful. As our affiliate membership grows, we anticipate innovation will drive content. Our hope is new worthy content will challenge our movement to press to higher levels of client care, and support from the communities we serve. Watch for events posted to the site for lobbying efforts and fundraising events. This summer we would like to survey your ideas on valuable website content.
Yelp! and other Social Media
Yelp! has from its beginning allowed business to self determine the category of business that best describes the services offered. Just short of a year ago, pregnancy centers in California noticed Yelp! changed a policy for their categories. They have determined to require us to use the category “Crisis Pregnancy Center” or “Faith-based Crisis Pregnancy Center.” CAPC sent a letter to Yelp! asking them to stop restricting the content of our members. Yelp’s response was as follows:
Yelp tries to provide our users the most accurate info for the searches they conduct. For a user seeking a facility that provides abortion services, we want to give them that result and not results that don’t provide that desired service or information. If they are seeking other services, we endeavor to the same goals.
Regarding your letter, however, there is no formal restriction to be lifted. Businesses can suggest changes or additions to the categories under which they are listed through our Edit Business Information processes. As with all types of suggested changes to business information, suggested changes will be moderated. We do not currently offer licensing verification for medical facilities, but businesses are able to utilize the ‘From the Business’ section of their Yelp for Business Owner’s account to provide this information to users.
Thank you for your additional feedback. We continue to work on expanding our structured data fields for business information to supplement review content on the site in order to more fully convey a business’ offerings to our user community, and will take your suggestions into account as we consider future product enhancements.
CAPC is disturbed by Yelp’s continued effort to control the message of Pregnancy Centers. They have singled our movement out to call our credibility into question. We have continued to look for an opportunity to take this fight to the next level. An opportunity may have presented itself. On May 27th President Trump had a Twitter post fact checked by twitter. In the past Facebook and Twitter have held the position that social media was not the arbiter of truth online. They have enjoyed the protection of the Communications Decency Act as publishers of speech not authors. Senator Rand Paul cautioned Twitter that they were crossing a line and generating content. We believe Yelp! has done the same thing to Pregnancy Centers.
There is movement for Internet reform that may include the Communications Decency Act. Lawmakers in Washington are looking for an opportunity to reign in internet content providers and internet monopolies. CAPC leadership is considering our options with Yelp! While this may be a big opportunity to see this injustice addressed, we also recognize timing is important, and our relationship with these content providers can be made worse! Please keep us in your prayers for God’s wisdom and timing. We plan to share more about this in the coming months.