Real Alternatives:

A Real Waste of Your Money.

What Real Waste Looks Like...

Real Alternatives, a secretive anti-abortion network headquartered in Harrisburg, claims it helps families in need — but the facts tell a different story.

Real Alternatives:

Has been investigated and sued multiple times because of questionable financial practices and fought each one

Was found to have taken money meant to be spent in Pennsylvania and instead, misused it in Michigan and Indiana

Never paid back $800,000 that it misused

Was defunded in Michigan after failing to fulfill its contract

Pays its top three executives more than $700,000 a year

It’s time for Real Alternatives to come clean.

What Is Real Alternatives?

Real Alternatives runs Pennsylvania’s state-funded anti-abortion center program called “Alternatives to Abortion.”

Each year, the Department of Human Services budget allocates millions of dollars to Real Alternatives to perform the government function of distributing grants  to anti-abortion centers around the state.

Since 2012, Real Alternatives has received more than $50 million dollars in state funding. In February 2021, it was awarded another $7,263,000 dollars ($6,263,000 in state funding and $1,000,000 in TANF dollars). 

Anti-abortion centers are known for deceptive practices, such as presenting themselves to look like clinics that provide abortion services, as well as giving false and misleading information about birth control and abortion. 

Real Alternatives, and anti-abortion centers, are not licensed medical centers. Even though they collect sensitive medical and sexual health information, they are not required to follow medical privacy laws. People’s health, sexual, and medical history should always remain highly confidential.

Real Alternatives got its start in Pennsylvania — but also set up programs in other states.  It still runs a program in Indiana. In 2019, Michigan defunded Real Alternatives after the state found it was not fulfilling its contract. 

Real Alternatives has also consulted on so-called “alternatives to abortion” programs in 17 states where it doesn’t directly provide services, including Florida, Texas, and Ohio.

How is Real Alternatives Wasting Money?

  • Real Alternatives pays its three executives more than $700,000 each year, all while claiming to help people struggling to get by.
  • The Real Alternatives board justifies this compensation by saying the organization operates in multiple states. However, in 2019, Michigan dropped Real Alternatives for not fulfilling its contract — and Real Alternatives only expanded by using money it was supposed to use in Pennsylvania.

“It is outrageous that, by its own admission in court, Real Alternatives used hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania taxpayer dollars to fund its activities in other states,” DePasquale said. “It is just as outrageous that the state grant agreement was so weak that it allowed this practice to go on for decades siphoning funds intended to benefit Pennsylvania women experiencing crisis pregnancies.” – PA Auditor General DePasquale, 2017

  • Real Alternatives executives shouldn’t get a raise for not fulfilling a contract in one state and violating it in another.

Real Alternatives took money meant for Pennsylvania working families and used it in Michigan and Indiana. 

“This is yet another example of the lack of oversight of state government grants that results in the wasting of tax dollars,” he said. “This egregious, admitted, violation of the grant should be the last straw that prompts state agencies to write and enforce tougher contracts.” – PA Auditor General DePasquale, 2017

Real Alternatives is refusing to tell the people what it did with money that it sent out of state. 

  • Real Alternatives has been the subject of multiple investigations and complaints and it has fought each one.
  • Real Alternatives is funded 99% by taxpayer dollars but in 2016 — when the state investigation tried to find out what they were spending money on — instead of coming clean, it sued the state in order to hide its books.

“We will never know how much money was taken out of the commonwealth nor how many Pennsylvania women and children may have been affected because this company channeled our tax dollars to other states,” – PA Auditor General DePasquale, 2017

  • When asked to provide simple information on how it spends its money through the state’s Right To Know Law, instead of providing basic information, Real Alternatives has spent four years fighting in court.
  • What is Real Alternatives trying to hide? 
    • Real Alternatives argues that how they spend public dollars is a private matter, while facing no requirement that they follow medical privacy laws. Real Alternatives, and anti-abortion centers, are not medical centers and even though they collect sensitive medical and sexual health information, they don’t have to protect it like a doctor’s office does. People’s health, sexual, and medical history should always remain highly confidential.
TAKE ACTION

Real Alternatives: Stop fighting transparency. It’s time to come clean.