The Educational Guidance Institute (EGI) is a non-profit educational organization established in 1986 by Onalee McGraw and Margaret Whitehead. The mission of EGI is to present the philosophical, learning theory and curriculum implementation principles underlying the “Whole Person” approach to character, abstinence, and marriage education.

With its first grant in the late 1980s, EGI's parent-teen project, The Challenge Program, was targeted to parents and teens together in diverse settings, such as Dundalk, Maryland, Upper Northwest Washington, DC, and Manassas, Virginia.

In the late 1990s, EGI was funded by a Virginia state grant in abstinence education under Title V of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. With this second grant, EGI began developing and piloting its Love and Life at the Movies curriculum. In this character education program, students view, analyze and discuss classic films, as well as learn vocabulary words and practice essay writing.

In October of 2005, through a nationwide grant competition, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded a Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grant to implement Project Heart to Heart in Love, Life and Marriage in Prince Georges County, Maryland and in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties in Virginia. At all three sites, the same basic combination of character and abstinence education were implemented.