Time to Give OUT!

I remember that October day so clearly. It was 1987, the day of the second great LGBT march on Washington – and the first time I’d found myself with so many others like me.

Seas of … us.

A quarter century later, the internet has birthed ways of coming together that none of us dreamed of then. Millions of us. Coming together on-line, of course, isn’t the same as being in one place at one time. But the potential is huge.
A new way to give
Now there’s something brand new – and incredibly exciting – that can bring millions of LGBT people together around one of the most important things any of us – or any ally – can do. It’s called Give OUT Day and it’s coming on May 9, 2013.

Give OUT Day is this brilliant idea to have a single day on which LGBT people coast to coast donate to LGBT nonprofit organizations that help, serve, and save hundreds of thousands of LGBT people – every day. Without these groups, the LGBT movement would be pretty much nowhere. Without them, LGBT communities from California to Maine to Louisiana would be unrecognizable. So would many of our own lives.

“…Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall…”

There it was. Right there in the President’s inaugural address, about three quarters through. “The most evident of truths,” he stated, is “that all of us are created equal,” and that this truth “is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall….”

Seneca Falls. Selma. Stonewall. Sites of events that proclaimed, each so bravely in its day, that women, that African Americans, that LGBT people, stood in the embrace of equality – and moved America closer to its most vaunted and most precious ideals.

Seneca Falls. Selma. Stonewall.

True allies

The French in the American Revolutionary War. Abolitionists in the fight against slavery. Urban consumers boycotting grapes to support farmworkers. Ruth Brinker, a straight woman, founding Project Open Hand in San Francisco early in the AIDS years.

Allies. They’re critical in just about every social movement I can think of, especially social movements that aim at justice for a group that’s unpopular or wields little political power.

The LGBT movement lost a giant ally earlier this week when Jeanne Manford, the founder of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, died at age 92. She started by standing up – 40 years ago – for her gay son, marching in the New York Pride Parade with a sign reading simply “Parents of Gays Unite in Support of Our Children.”

Not just another meeting

Foundations rarely just “meet.” They “convene.” In fact, alongside perennial foundation-world buzzwords like “community” and “partnership,” convening might be the field’s most gratuitously overused word. There’s nothing wrong, of course, with community, partnership, or convening. It’s just that when deployed so relentlessly, the words begin to drain of meaning.

But sometimes “convening” fits the occasion. I write this while flying somewhere over Ohio, heading home after a gathering that does merit the grander moniker. The world’s second largest foundation, the Ford Foundation, brought together 150 or so leaders from LGBT advocacy and foundation worlds. It was an honor to be there.

A Magnificent Evening

I’m about to violate Rule Number One of blogging: Keep those blog posts short! And, generally speaking, it’s an excellent rule to follow. Most people aren’t enamored about reading rivers of words, much less on small screens.

But for every rule (well, most every rule) there’s an exception, and this is one. Just over a week ago, Horizons held its annual gala at the grand Fairmont Hotel here in San Francisco. It was a great evening – a real celebration of community – with terrific honorees (Barney Frank and Kate Kendell), dancing late into the night, a rich mix of people, and a rare and wonderful energy that suffused the goings-on from the first glass of champagne to the last dance.

After dinner, I had the chance to make some remarks. The goal of the remarks was to convey not only a bit about what makes Horizons so important, but also where we all find ourselves today as a movement – and where we are headed, both as a foundation and as a community. We’ve copied them just below.  – and they’re really not that long!

I hope they communicate something of what Horizons is all about and the exciting vision that we have for the future of the LGBT community. Thank you for taking the time to give them a look.

Roger Doughty
Executive Director

Marriage Marches On

Something’s definitely happening out there. The march of marriage equality seems to have gone into hyper-drive. Marriage laws enacted in Washington and Maryland. Another court knocked down a key part of the federal DOMA. Marriage-equality passed by New Jersey’s legislature, and, of course, the Ninth Circuit’s Prop 8 ruling just one month ago.