By Sarah Neely
Pro-life organizations should be wary of the digital marketing group Feathr, which has recently developed the habit of contracting with pro-life organizations only to suddenly refuse to work with them – Operation Rescue included.
When OR decided to contract with Feathr earlier this year, it was with a warning from friends at the pro-life law group Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF). LLDF also contracted with Feathr. After a year with the company, however – having devoted significant time and resources to the onboarding process, and utilizing the platform for months – the president of Feathr suddenly informed LLDF that their team could renew their contract, but no one at the company was willing to service it. LLDF was told this was due to its pro-life mission – something Feathr would have obviously been familiar with from day one of that contract.
Knowing LLDF’s experience, OR was very up front when Feathr’s sales representative pitched the idea of a contract. OR staff brought up LLDF and expressed concern that OR, also being a pro-life group, would get dropped for the same reasons.
“We were very open and honest with Feathr about any apprehension, and about the nature of our pro-life activism,” says Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “In that first meeting, the Feathr sales rep assured us she was aware of what happened with LLDF and that she and others on the sales team had made sure something like that would not happen again.”
To reassure OR even further, this sales rep offered to contact Feathr’s leadership and make certain someone was willing to work with the team. Shortly after, OR received an email that read: “I did confirm with my leadership that we would definitely work with your cause.”
With that assurance, OR signed a two-year contract, paid thousands of dollars to get started, and began Feathr’s time-consuming onboarding process.
“In each meeting,” Newman says, “Feather staff had access to OR’s website and digital marketing content, all of which made very obvious what kind of pro-life work we do and the history of our organization. Our staff was also very honest about what kind of online engagement we were hoping to develop – our target audiences and the kinds of ads we’d like to run. We’re activists. We want to activate pro-lifers.”
However, over a month into the onboarding process, OR received a notification that a Feathr training scheduled weeks earlier was cancelled. No explanation was given. Thinking it could be an unexpected scheduling conflict with the Onboarder, OR’s Chief Operating Officer Sarah Neely contacted Feathr directly. No one responded.
Hours later, Operation Rescue’s team received a “Notice of Cancellation” from Cliff Corr, Vice President of Customer Success at Feathr. The email cited a “deeper review of the history of [OR’s] organization and its leadership,” as well as “risks to [Feathr’s] infrastructure partnerships.”
When OR pressed for a better explanation of a “deeper review,” Corr replied with an article printed in 1988 – 37 years ago – as well as two more articles regarding outdated information that had nothing to do with the current day-to-day operations of OR, nor did they involve any wrongdoing on OR’s part. Despite these facts, Feathr accused Operation Rescue of “violating regulations” and “criminal behavior.”
Corr stated that the “basis or ultimate truth” of the information he received from members of his team didn’t matter, only the “reputational risk for Feathr” to place ads or send emails.
“Operation Rescue has been a long-time customer of a major email marketing platform for decades,” says Newman. “Its reputation seems to have survived just fine. In reality, Feathr’s leadership knew they had already assured us that our pro-life mission wouldn’t be an issue, so they had to find another reason to cancel us – like a California news article from 1988. What an absolute sham.”
The accusation of past “criminal behavior” rings especially hollow, as one of the organizations highlighted on Feathr’s own website is Guiding Light, a recovery program based in Michigan that works with recovering addicts. Their website clearly states many of their employees are “graduates of the Guiding Light addiction rehab and recovery program.”
Newman adds, “I wonder how many of this recovery program’s current employees were once accused or even convicted of criminal acts in the midst of their addiction. Did Feathr’s team perform a ‘deeper review’ of the history of their leadership, or are ‘deeper reviews’ only reserved for those of us with the audacity to believe every child’s life in the womb has worth and dignity?”
Though the initial cost of the contract was refunded, Feathr offered no compensation for the significant time and effort put into its onboarding process by OR staff. Operation Rescue is still investigating legal options.
“We are used to getting cancelled by pro-aborts,” says Newman, “we just usually know they are pro-aborts up front. Feathr let us waste precious time and resources for over a month before suddenly deciding our pro-life activism was a problem for their own reputation – which, as far as I can tell, is that of a company that won’t keep its word.”
This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Sarah Neely, is Chief Operating Officer for Operation Rescue.”
