This story was produced in partnership with The Frontier.
An address for a nonprofit that oversees millions of dollars in state money to support abortion alternatives is an unassuming brick suburban house in Oklahoma City.
The home belongs to Paul Abner, a politically active minister who previously sold curriculum and purity rings to promote sexual abstinence until marriage through a group he founded, called Worth the Wait. Over the years, Abner has campaigned against recreational marijuana and abortion and acted as a campaign consultant for U.S. Sen. James Lankford.
The Oklahoma Life Foundation is his latest mission. Abner worked alongside a lobbyist representing Catholic bishops to form the group in 2023. About a year later, the Oklahoma State Department of Health awarded the organization a contract through a competitive bid process based on its plan to reimburse pregnancy resource centers, churches and other groups with money from the state’s Choosing Childbirth program.
The program has become a key part of Oklahoma’s strategy to support young children and pregnant women after the state enacted a near-total abortion ban in 2022.
“We are people that are out here to help young mothers, help pregnant women. Some of them have made tough choices, and we want to be there to help them,” said Abner, who serves as the Oklahoma Life Foundation’s executive director.
The Oklahoma Legislature expanded the program in 2024 to include ultrasounds, mental health and substance abuse services, and transportation assistance for mothers and children up to three years old. The founders of the Oklahoma Life Foundation were among those who pushed for the expansion.
The Oklahoma Life Foundation received about one-third of the program’s 2024 state appropriation of $18 million. The group plans to distribute about $5.1 million to service providers across the state. About $400,000 of the state money will go toward paying six Oklahoma Life Foundation staff.
Grant-supervising entities like the Oklahoma Life Foundation are largely responsible for vetting and monitoring nonprofits they reimburse, The Frontier and StateImpact Oklahoma found. The nonprofits that get funding through groups like the Oklahoma Life Foundation aren’t required to apply in a competitive process through the State Department of Health like groups the state funds directly.
Instead, grant supervisors are in charge of overseeing the application, onboarding and monitoring process, a spokesperson for the agency said in an email.
The goal is for grant supervisors like the Oklahoma Life Foundation to be primary monitors of the nonprofits’ use of state money, but the State Department of Health also reviews all financial documentation before reimbursement, the spokesperson said.
The nonprofits must still meet certain requirements set out in law and by the State Department of Health, the spokesperson said. The agency reviews information on nonprofits submitted by grant supervisors, and it has final approval over who gets the money.
The Frontier and StateImpact met with Oklahoma Life Foundation leadership for several interviews while reporting this story. The news outlets made repeated requests for a copy of the application the Oklahoma Life Foundation asked nonprofits to complete, but the organization didn’t provide one before publication.
Brett Farley, the group’s co-founder, said it advertised the funding opportunity to networks of pregnancy resource centers and churches he and Abner have worked with in the past.
As a nonprofit, the Oklahoma Life Foundation has different protocols than a state agency for selecting who can get Choosing Childbirth money, said Farley.
“But we certainly do have rigorous criteria in terms of what kind of groups are we looking for,” Farley said. “First and foremost, are they serious about the mission of helping women and children?”
The Department of Health spokesperson said grant-supervising entities can provide support to small organizations. They said many are located outside the metro area, and partnerships with grant supervisors help ensure services reach rural and underserved communities.
But a few of the organizations the Oklahoma Life Foundation reimburses are much larger, including Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, which generated about $18.2 million in revenue in 2023.
Catholic Charities plans to use its share of $649,990 in Choosing Childbirth money to provide counseling, referrals, parenting education and supplies for young children across the state.
The organization has contracted directly with the state on projects in the past but chose to work with the Oklahoma Life Foundation instead because of its pre-existing relationship with the group’s founders, said Patrick Raglow, executive director of Catholic Charities.
State funds will help launch a pro-life telehealth brand
Another group the Oklahoma Life Foundation is set to reimburse is Her First Women’s Health – a new telehealth brand created by Dallas-based nonprofit Heroic Media.
Until recently, Heroic Media said on its website that its mission was to connect women to resources that “empower them to act heroically to save lives from the evil of abortion.”
The group’s CEO Brett Attebery said in response to an email from The Frontier and StateImpact Tuesday the group’s mission is now “to restore justice and dignity to women by guaranteeing their Right to Support when facing an unexpected pregnancy.”
It hopes to eventually build a nationwide telehealth and referral network of pregnancy resource centers and other service providers for women. It had nearly $2.3 million in revenue in 2023.
Her First plans to focus its state funding on telehealth operating costs and advertising, Attebery said in an email.
Preliminary plans the Oklahoma Life Foundation submitted to the State Department of Health show Her First initially wanted almost $1.8 million in state money, designating $936,000 of it for marketing, including billboards, digital advertising and search engine optimization. The Oklahoma Life Foundation eventually set aside $448,434 for the group.
As of Tuesday, the group had not received any state funds through the Oklahoma Life Foundation, Attebery said. Her First has self-funded the operation since September 2024, he said.
Although Attebery said the group is likely big enough to contract directly with the State Department of Health, it is helpful to have the Oklahoma Life Foundation to work with the government on its behalf.
“I'm no expert on how to deal with State Department of Health people, right? I don't know. That's not my background,” Attebery said. “Whereas Brett Farley and some of the other people in the Oklahoma Life Foundation do have that experience.”
Groups reimbursed directly by the Health Department must apply for funding through a competitive bid process, completing an application with a project summary, a line-item budget with explanations, and a work plan with goals and objectives.
The Health Department does review some information about what costs grant supervisors plan to reimburse groups for when they evaluate supervisors’ work plans. But the Oklahoma Life Foundation’s plan only includes a couple of sentences each about the services the nonprofits it partners with want to provide.
The Oklahoma Life Foundation wrote in its work plan that Her First would reach “over 75% of Oklahoma’s women” through statewide advertisements of its telehealth network. Attebery said they target those aged 18-29.
When women call Her First’s advertised phone number, they're routed to a call center in Tennessee, said Attebery. A call center agent or registered nurse will assess the woman’s needs and connect them to local organizations for free, including ones listed in an online directory of “life-affirming” providers, he said.
Those providers can help women with supplies like cribs and strollers, or with longer-term offerings like rent support, Attebery said. Heroic Media is starting the Her First program in Oklahoma, but he said it has plans to expand across the country.
“If that model works, why not take that to other cities and states as well?” Attebery said.
Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, said she thinks this service is a “duplication at best,” citing Oklahoma’s 211 program. The free service available across 77 counties is operated by two nonprofits that use resource specialists in Oklahoma City and Tulsa to connect people to social services. Those include many organizations listed in the directory Her First draws from.
Attebery said in an email he wasn’t aware of this service. But he said unlike 211, Her First focuses solely on health issues related to pregnancy, and its call center has licensed nurses on staff who consult with clients.
Hicks authored legislation in 2023 that would have added home visitation services from professionals like nurses to the Choosing Childbirth program, but it didn’t pass. She said she’s happy with some of the changes made through its expansion but continues to be critical of the program’s ability to connect Oklahomans with services that will move the needle on infant and maternal mortality.
She’s advocated for greater transparency as the state reimburses private organizations.
“I think the State Health Department needs to be more active in vetting those resources and if they are outsourcing it to a third party,” Hicks said, “that we are really making sure that these are resources that are evidence-based and scientifically proven to help that family thrive.”
One author of Choosing Childbirth legislation didn’t see a need for grant supervisors
The Choosing Childbirth program was created in 2017 by former Rep. Kevin Calvey, R-Edmond, and former Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City. The law required the State Department of Health to use a singular grant-supervising entity to reimburse nonprofits, which it started doing in 2020.
But a 2022 audit found this different grant supervisor, the Oklahoma Pregnancy Care Network, took too long to reimburse nonprofits for services they provided and spent more on administrative costs than in aid.
Treat said he initially thought including a grant supervisor was unnecessary. He said it was Calvey’s wish to include it in the program.
The Frontier and StateImpact reached out to Calvey multiple times. He didn’t respond before publication. After he left the Legislature, Calvey worked as a lobbyist in 2019 for the anti-abortion group Oklahomans for Life, an affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.
A bill by Treat signed into law last year allows the State Department of Health to distribute money directly to nonprofits. Treat said he became frustrated by how the original Choosing Childbirth legislation seemed to indicate only one grant supervising entity could exist — especially when the Pregnancy Care Network wasn’t getting money out the door.
“I wasn’t satisfied in the way it was running, and I had no direct ability to impact that other than trying to force competition and get the Department of Health involved,” Treat said.
Legislation requires that a “significant portion” of state funding should go to pregnancy resource centers, many of which benefit from the support of a grant-supervising entity, a Department of Health spokesperson said in an email.
The Department of Health set aside more than half of the $18 million in its 2024 allocations for the Oklahoma Pregnancy Care Network and Oklahoma Life Foundation. It’s also directly reimbursing some groups.
Oklahoma Life Foundation founders said they observed the challenges the Oklahoma Pregnancy Care Network faced and thought they could improve the program by leveraging relationships with more established service providers, like Catholic Charities, and pooling resources together to add new players – including nonprofits and churches.
Help from a lobbyist to form Oklahoma Life Foundation
Besides being one of the Oklahoma Life Foundation’s founders, Farley is a lobbyist for the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, an organization founded by state bishops that serves as the voice of the church “on matters of public policy.”
The Oklahoma Life Foundation’s Choosing Childbirth application – obtained by The Frontier and StateImpact – indicates Farley’s role in the group once also involved lobbying. His title was listed as a “legislative and stakeholder liaison” and included advocating for “life-affirming legislation” that aligns with the Choosing Childbirth program.
The Health Department notified the Oklahoma Life Foundation that program rules stipulate state funds can't support lobbying efforts, a spokesperson for the agency said.
Farley’s current position is “stakeholder liaison.” He said he connects with donors and helps with onboarding and familiarizing groups with the Choosing Childbirth program and its requirements.
His position is funded through private donations “to ensure a clear and appropriate separation between any advocacy-related activities and state-funded services,” he said in an email.
The Oklahoma Life Foundation’s private donors include the National Christian Foundation, Kathleen S. Craft Foundation and Butterfield Foundation.
The executive vice president of the Butterfield Foundation – a Christian grantmaking group – served on a 2022 governor’s task force that recommended expanding funding to pregnancy resource centers through the Choosing Childbirth program. The Kathleen S. Craft Foundation also donates to many faith-based groups.
Farley said the Oklahoma Life Foundation and Catholic Conference share similar priorities and values.
When asked if he could lobby in his capacity with the Catholic Conference to further expand Choosing Childbirth, he said he's “going to lobby for anything that benefits life.”
Farley said in March he was hopeful the Choosing Childbirth program would receive more state funding in this year’s budget negotiations, but the Legislature doled out a flat appropriation of $18 million.
Future funding for the Oklahoma Life Foundation is still uncertain. All Choosing Childbirth grants will be “appropriately renewed” based on performance and available funding, a spokesperson for the agency said in an email.
The Oklahoma Life Foundation hopes to eventually distribute funding for services that cover all of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.
Farley said in May that the process of reimbursing organizations has been slower than expected, but he’s confident the group will get to a “cruising altitude.”
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