Vitae Foundation

The Vitae Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization associated with the pro-life (anti-abortion) cause.

Their focus is on engaging in advertising research and developing more effective messaging, and communicating the results of this research to other pro-life organizations (such as crisis pregnancy centers), and persons such as doctors and pastors who are or may be involved with pregnant women, to provide them with more effective ways to (if so inclined) persuade undecided women to forgo abortion.

This is their primary focus. The foundation does not lobby or argue for or against laws, conduct demonstrations, use religious rhetoric, provide services to the public, or engage in similar activist operations often associated with pro-life organizations. They do advertise to the general public, propagating pro-life messages, but also in part just to create interest in and donations to the Foundation.

Cause IQ characterizes the Foundation as an organization that "conducts research into the emotional dynamics surrounding women facing an abortion decision, then produces and delivers life-affirming messages to motivate those women to choose life for their unborn children".

Funding
In addition to individual donations, the Foundation receives some support from organizations. In fiscal year 2022 its largest grantor was the Schwab Charitable Fund, giving $197,750. It also runs a number of fundraising events, such as golf tournaments and dinners. The Foundation hosts an annual convention in Jefferson City.

For 2022, the Charity Navigator gave the Vitae Foundation a score of 99%, indicating an extremely high level of fiscal soundness and accountability, transparency, and leadership competence (although in the preceding six years it had scored in the 80-89% range).

History
According to the Foundation, Carl Landwehr led the formation of what is now the Vitae Foundation in 1977.

He came to define his mission with the question "How would you market the product of life if that was your business?" In 1993 Landwehr commissioned Charles Kenny of The Right Brain People (the right brain is associated in popular imagination as the source of emotions) to develop pro-life messaging that was not politically charged or confrontational or with accusatory undertones. Kenny helped develop a more low-key approach (e.g."Think about it"). Female empowerment themes are also used, echoing anti-abortion feminism rhetoric to a degree ("Since when do we give up when life gets hard?").

Starting in 2015, Foundation ads have been run in radio broadcasts of baseball games of the Kansas City Royals on KCSP, and the Foundation also has signs at their ballpark, Kauffman Stadium. A Former Royals all-star, employed by the team, (as of 2017), voices the Vitae foundation radio ads. The Royals also honored a seventh-grade student who won an essay contest run by the Foundation (with cooperation from the Archdiocese of Kansas City) on the subject of "Encouraging a Culture of Life" by inviting them to throw the honorary first pitch at a 2017 game. This occasioned pro-choice activist organization UltraViolet to initiate an online petition demanding the Royals stop carrying Vitae Foundation messages and flew a banner, decrying the Royals' relationship with the Foundation, over the stadium during a game. In the 2020s the Foundation began broadcasting ads in heavy rotation during St Louis Cardinals games, on KMOX.

The Vitae Foundation was sued in 2008 by Edwin and Karl Hardt, executors for the estate of Selma J. Hartke. The Hardts had granted $8,242,000 from the estate to the Vitae Foundation, but later contended that the money was not being used in the way promised. The suit was dismissed` on grounds that the Hardts lacked Standing.