[Editor's note: This story was updated Feb. 14 to clarify that Heroic Media does not intend to open its own pregnancy centers; rather, the nonprofit intends to assist other groups establish centers. "Heroic Media's intent is to promote existing efforts by other life affirming groups to establish and grow pregnancy resource centers in underserved communities," said spokesperson Kimberly Speirs.]

An Austin-based anti-abortion group’s new advertising campaigns targeting African Americans and Planned Parenthood dovetail with the international ambitions of the nonprofit, which has links to a vast family fortune made in the frozen food business.

Heroic Media conducts marketing campaigns for crisis pregnancy resource centers, which do not provide health care services but instead dispense advice to women not to have abortions.

The group’s founder, Brian Follett, says he plans to set up regional branches across the U.S. and in Latin America. He also wants his organization to evolve from marketing such centers to helping other groups establish new facilities in major urban areas such as Chicago and Washington, D.C.

“We have not done that before,” Follett said. “Actually we’re having an event in D.C. with Sarah Palin, and we’re looking for 20 percent of the proceeds from that to go to African American outreach in the inner city.”

Heroic’s 2011 budget is about $5 million, Follett said. His goal is to grow into an organization with an annual budget of $30 million-$50 million within the next five years, he said. By comparison, the total net assets of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates in 2008 was more than $1 billion.

Follett has also created and led the Majella Foundation, a separate nonprofit whose mission is very similar to Heroic’s. Internal Revenue Service documents show that the Majella Foundation’s mission is “to educate persons over issues regarding the value of life and its need for protection from the time of conception. The foundation achieves this goal through the procuring and producing of video and/or audio messages and buying television and radio time to play the messages.”

Heroic Media was known as the Majella Society until a rebranding in December 2009.

IRS documents show that the Majella Foundation raised about $31,000 in 2009 from ticket sales to its events, which went toward paying for the events, rather than into the nonprofit’s coffers. (Read the Majella Foundation’s 2009 IRS filings.)

That same year, the Foundation reported spending about $315,000 on advertising and $51,000 on IT support. In 2008, Heroic (then known as the Majella Society) reported spending about $563,000 on advertising and $23,000 for IT. (Read Heroic/Majella Society’s 2008 IRS filings.) In 2007, Heroic/Majella Society reported spending about $436,000 on advertising and $18,000 on IT. (Read Heroic/Majella Society’s 2007 IRS filings.)

According to the GuideStar database, Heroic had a $500,000 budget for TV advertising, $80,000 for billboards and $12,000 for a website aimed at teens. The database does not specify a year for those figures, which do not appear in the IRS filings.

Though Follett initially planned to keep Heroic confined to Texas, he founded the charity with the notion that it would grow beyond Austin.

“Austin was our beta test,” he said. “Austin is probably the least life-friendly market of all the four major media markets in Texas.”

Follett aspires for Heroic to expand to places such as Chicago, Houston, Connecticut and the Los Angeles area. Three branch presidents have already been hired — including in Ecuador, to serve Mexico and Central and South America, he said.

When asked if major donors had surfaced to enable the organization’s rapid expansion, Follett said, “No, we don’t have a money tree.”

He said Heroic has gained support because its campaigns are effective, pointing to a 24 percent drop in the abortion ratio (number of abortions divided by live births) in the Austin area from 2003-2008.

Sarah Wheat, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood in Austin, attributed the decline to state legislation passed in 2003 and 2005 that established a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can have an abortion, required parental consent before a teenager can have an abortion, and instituted severe restrictions on abortions after 16 weeks beyond conception.

“These laws had an immediate and direct impact on reducing abortions, as they were intended,” Wheat said. “It’s much harder to be a provider of abortions.”

Follett said, “We attribute our success to that God really uses media to change the culture.”

Considerable wealth also doesn’t hurt.

According to IRS documents for the Majella Foundation, the organization took in $1.72 million in donations in 2009. About 85 percent of that was from Follett, his family or a third related charity called the Life Foundation — which, too, was created and is led by Follett and is based out of the same northwest Austin address as Heroic and Majella Foundation, although the Life Foundation is actually registered as a Wisconsin charity. (Follett registered the Majella Cares corporation with the Texas Secretary of State in March 2004.)

According to the IRS document (which is the only form to cite donations to Heroic or Majella Foundation by named individuals), Follett himself gave Majella $1.08 million in 2009. Robert and Joan Follett of Wisconsin gave $102,500, and the Life Foundation gave $275,000.  In 2008, the Life Foundation had $6 million in assets in the form of stocks. (Read the Life Foundation’s IRS documents from 2008, 2007 and 2006.)

The Follett family business was Anchor Foods, a manufacturer and supplier of frozen food appetizers headquartered in Wisconsin and with plants in Pecos, Texas, and Cuauhtémoc, Mexico. In 2000, the year before it was bought by McCain Foods and H.J. Heinz Company, the privately held Anchor recorded sales of $503 million. The terms of the deal were not disclosed at the time of the transaction.

The members of the Follett family are no strangers to philanthropy on a massive scale. Funded through a system of tithing from the family’s earnings, the Folletts’ Wisconsin-based charity Mercy Works Foundation held about $29 million in assets, according to 2008 documents, and donated $3.4 million that year, mostly to Catholic and anti-abortion causes. (In 2006, Mercy Works reported having $52.2 million in assets and donating $6.1 million in grants.)

The board of directors for Mercy Works includes Brian, Mark, Robert, Sally and Scott Follett, plus David Krause, Jody Lueck and Joe Malone.

Mark Follett founded Starboard Media Foundation and Relevant Radio, the largest Catholic talk radio network in the country. Relevant Radio is recognized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as a national media outlet, meaning it has the official Church seal of approval.

From 2006-2008, Mercy Works gave the Majella Foundation $405,000 in grants. In the same time period, Mercy Works gave more than $5 million in grants to Relevant Radio, which owns 12 radio stations, including in Austin and Chicago, and has 21 affiliates, including in College Station and Corpus Christi. (Read Mercy Work’s IRS documents from 2008, 2007 and 2006.)

Heroic’s Wisconsin ties are also apparent in that its board of directors includes Barbara Lyons of nonprofit Wisconsin Right to Life, which was made famous in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that set precedent for the later Citizens United campaign finance ruling.

Over the years, Follett has been a prolific donor to GOP candidates and causes, giving more than $185,000 on the state and federal level since 2001. He has given $45,000 to Gov. Rick Perry (including $20,000 in February 2010) and $47,500 to former section 527 group Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth.

Rochelle Tofoya, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood in Houston, said Follett could better serve the community instead of doing marketing for pregnancy centers.

“Clearly the Follett family has deep pockets, and they’re spending it on billboards. They could do more if they spent on distributing actual health information, rather than putting up billboards,” she said.

(Image by: Matt Mahurin)