5. Advance Preparations

Several key aspects of your Rally have to be prepared well in advance. Special guest speakers will need to fit the Rally into their schedules. Signs need to be ordered or made by hand. Hunting down a stage and sound system may take some days.

Recruiting speakers for your Rally

Your Rally will be most successful if you can recruit some engaging speakers from a variety of backgrounds. Good speakers could include pastors, priests or bishops, pro-life politicians, post-abortive women, pro-life activists, attorneys, doctors, or other people of local not.

Remember, any busy speaker will have their schedules booked well in advance, so start making calls for speakers immediately.

Signs for your rally

You can purchase a packet of 30 signs from the Pro-Life Action League for your Decision Day Rally, including 10 “Stop Abortion Now” signs, 10 “Moms for Life” signs, and 10 “Dads for Life” signs. Quantities are limited, so order your sign pack immediately.

You can also use these sign designs and have them printed locally at a print shop like FedEx Office or Office Depot. Find those designs below. Simply click the images to go to the full-sized PDF, save the PDF and send it to your printer.

Click image for full-sized PDF file.
Click image for full-sized PDF file.
Click image for full-sized PDF file.
Click image for full-sized PDF file

You can also make your own signs for your your Rally with pasteboard and markers. If you make your own signs, keep the focus on the abortion issue, avoiding any political themes. Be sure to use contrasting foreground and background colors (dark writing on a bright background, or vice versa) and make your message large and use as few words as possible so it will be easy to read.

Click image for full-sized PDF file

Rally stage and sound system

Rally Stage: Even for a small Rally, some kind of stage area is advantageous. This could be as simple as having your emcee and guest speakers on the capitol steps, or as sophisticated as a rented stage, complete with steps and a backdrop.

A competent volunteer carpenter might be willing to build a simple wooden stage raised a foot or two off the ground. Stage platforms are also fairly inexpensive to rent from a local rental facility.

Sound System: Depending on the size of your rally, you may need to employ a sound system.

For a larger crowd—say, 100 or more—a public address system (P.A.) is ideal. Your church, local pro-life group or civic organization may have one you can borrow, or you can rent a P.A. from a local rental company or music store.

If you use sound amplification, you may run into problems with local noise ordinances—especially if your Rally is being held at a courthouse, where it is important not to interrupt court proceedings.

The police may ask you to turn it down, and you should comply with such reasonable requests (see “Working with police at your pro-life event,” on the Pro-Life Action League website).

Return to Leader Tools Menu