ORTL Hires Launch Graduate for Development Specialty

When Portlander Helen Doran attended Launch, Oregon Right to Life’s springtime retreat for young adult pro-lifers in 2016, she already considered herself firmly in the pro-life camp. But she never pictured herself taking a job at ORTL as a development specialist six years later.

“I grew up in a devout Catholic family and always had a respect for life instilled in me from a young age, but I didn’t realize the true reality of abortion until I attended Launch in high school,” Doran says. “Since then, I have held the belief that we are all called in some way to ensure we are not standing on the sideline while witnessing the world’s largest massacre of innocent lives in history.”

Doran, age 25, joined the ORTL team in July of 2022. Executive director Lois Anderson had been eyeing Doran’s hire even before then.

“Keeping in touch with her over the years after she attended Launch, I hoped that one day she might want to come to work for us, and now she’s here!” Anderson says. “Helen has a heart for service, which is just one of the character traits that make her a wonderful part of our development team.”

As a development specialist, Doran, a married mother of a toddler, is responsible for development communications, largely consisting of donor relations and grant funding. She also is in the process of building ORTL’s monthly donor program.

“The team at Oregon Right to Life is incredible, and even though I am remote and part-time, they make me feel right at home,” Doran says. “The flexibility that ORTL has provided in order for me to be home with my son has also been a huge blessing!”

That flexibility is very intentional, says Anderson.

“Having worked for ORTL while raising little ones, it’s such a privilege to provide opportunities for other pro-life moms to prioritize family and have such an essential role in the pro-life movement,” she says.

Doran aims to volunteer at a pregnancy resource center in 2024, with the ultimate goal of documenting and sharing stories of women impacted by abortion.

“I couldn’t fathom the world calling a child, who is no different than my son in dignity and value, unwanted,” she says.