In the past few weeks, Morality in Media has experienced a great deal of success—frankly, breakthrough success—and I wanted to pause and thank you for your unrelenting support of our efforts.
As you may already know, Morality in Media has decided to begin operating under a new name – National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE) – to more effectively carry out our mission to defend dignity and end exploitation. We feel that the new name better exposes the seamless connections between all forms of sexual exploitation – pornography, sex trafficking, sexual violence, child sexual abuse, and others.
This decision to operate under a new name comes after much thought, prayer, and deliberation amongst our Board of Directors, staff, and close allies in the movement. We have considered this change over the last couple of years and feel strongly that it is an inspired move. We will keep the name Morality in Media for our legal records, but publicly will soon operate solely under NCSE.
Over the past few years, we have noticed that many in the public, including the press and potential supporters, disregard us automatically based on the name Morality in Media. Unfortunately, the term “morality” has a different meaning in popular culture than it did in the 1960s. We will continue to fight for morality and decency with all of the force we have, but with the MIM name there are more hurdles than open doors in recent years. We believe that the name National Center on Sexual Exploitation will allow us to reach a broader audience with our message. Already, we have seen incredible momentum under this new name.
I also want to state that we work to carry out the legacy of our founder, Father Morton Hill, each and every day. Fr. Hill worked tirelessly to defend the dignity of all children, women, and men. MIM has seen much success over the past 53 years due to his vision, and I do not seek to change paths. We are still working towards the same goal.
In the past few weeks, since the launch of our new name, we have received an overwhelming amount of press which has catapulted these issues into the national dialogue. Our Executive Director, Dawn Hawkins, has done over 40 interviews in the last three weeks, including on Good Morning America, CNN, CBS This Morning and EWTN, just to name a few. We have appeared in publications like New York Times, Fox News, Business Insider, Variety, Time, Washington Times, and People Magazine. Again, that is only a short list. We have had three op-eds published in the last two weeks. You and I can both be proud to know that our message is reaching millions of people!
This boom in press is having a great effect. We are seeing supporters flock to us. In the last four weeks, since first announcing the name change, our list of email subscribers and engaged activists has nearly doubled! The number of people coming to our website to participate in our projects or to get help is unprecedented – more than 1,000,000 unique visitors in the last month alone. Prior to this increased momentum, our website saw about 20,000-30,000 unique visitors each month, which is still quite impressive. It seems the new name change has encouraged more supporters to join the cause.
We are aware of your commitment and support with each success we experience, and we are extremely grateful. I welcome your feedback and I hope that you are pleased with our work. Please continue to keep Morality in Media & National Center on Sexual Exploitation in your thoughts and prayers and to help wherever you can.
Most grateful to be involved in this fight!
Sincerely,
Patrick A. Trueman
President & CEO | National Center on Sexual Exploitation & Morality in Media
