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The New York Times
giving
Grants for Gay
Services Grow and Go Mainstream
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Sara D. Davis for The New York Times
Ian Palmquist of the Equality NC Foundation says
charities help advance his group. |
By DIRK JOHNSON,
nytimes.com on the Web, November 13, 2007
IT’S not easy being a teenager and
gay in a deeply conservative community like Colorado Springs. This is the
headquarters of many Christian groups that strongly disapprove of homosexuality,
including Focus on the Family.
Talia Ellis landed in a homeless shelter at age 19, unsure where she could turn
for help and acceptance. In Colorado Springs, Ms. Ellis, who is bisexual,
had been told flatly: You are going to hell.
Somebody in the shelter told her about a group called Inside/Out Youth Services,
which helps gay or “questioning” young people in Colorado Springs.
“I found out there were people who really did care about someone like me,” said
Ms. Ellis, now 20, “people who didn’t look down on me.”
Inside/Out runs largely on grants from the Gill Foundation of Denver, which
financially supports groups that serve gay people. The foundation, created
by Tim Gill, a gay man who invented Quark software, issued some $12 million in
grants last year. It is a big player in the expanding field of gay
philanthropy.
Every year, the Gill Foundation holds a conference in Aspen called Outgiving, a
gathering of rich donors who plan strategies for investing in nonprofit
organizations that advocate for gay men and lesbians.
Scholars of philanthropy say giving to gay causes has been soaring. Not
only are many rich gay people donating, but also philanthropies over all are
coming to view gay life as part of mainstream America, said Liz Livingston
Howard, an associate director of the Center for Nonprofit Management at
Northwestern University.
“Gay philanthropy has been rising dramatically,” Ms. Howard said. “As our
society has become more multicultural, the entire field of philanthropy has
become more diverse.” She cited corporations that 20 years ago ignored gay
people and now market to them aggressively.
Despite the changes in American society, gay people can still feel like outcasts
in deeply conservative regions. Gay philanthropy has helped create a
security net of social service and advocacy.
Deborah Surat, the executive director of Inside/Out, said the climate of harsh
judgment in a place like Colorado Springs extends to the home, which she said
explained why 10 to 25 percent of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender young
people in the community are homeless.
“You have families who are hearing every Sunday how heinous it is to be gay,”
she said. “These parents want to stay true to their religion, and some of
them simply turn their children out to the streets.”
Inside/Out holds meetings three nights a week in the basement of a former
church. It welcomes people ages 13 to 22. “This is a place they can
come and be safe,” she said. Besides reassuring young gay people that they are
worthy, Ms. Surat said, the group teaches life skills, including self-defense.
The skills are needed, Ms. Surat said, because gay people are often the targets
of attacks. “If they’re seen as vulnerable, the bullies at school will
pick on them mercilessly,” she said. “Teaching them martial arts helps
them carry themselves with confidence, so that hopefully they’ll be left alone.
But if worst comes to worst, and they’re pushed into a corner, they’ll be able
to defend themselves.”
Mr. Gill, a native of Colorado, chooses to keep a low profile, said Joanne Kron,
a spokeswoman for the Gill Foundation. But she said a referendum in
Colorado in 1992, which barred local jurisdictions from protecting gay people,
persuaded Mr. Gill to devote a sizable chunk of his fortune to advocating for
and assisting gay men and lesbians.
The measure passed in a campaign that revealed deep divisions in Colorado and
prompted some national groups to boycott the state. The law, which was
later ruled unconstitutional, had been strongly backed by Focus on the Family
and other conservative religious groups in Colorado Springs. The city is
also home to the Air Force Academy and Fort Carson, and many who had careers in
the military retire there.
For gay people of any age, and especially for the young, Colorado Springs can be
a daunting environment, said Ms. Surat of Inside/Out. But the Gill
Foundation, she added, is the group’s biggest financial supporter and has made
all the difference for those involved. “Thank goodness they’re here for
us.”
Among Gill’s other recipients is a North Carolina group that advocates for gay
people, Equality NC Foundation. Ian Palmquist, the executive director of
the group, said a sharp increase in gay philanthropy was helping organizations
like his to grow. Though it had just two staff members a few years ago,
the foundation will soon expand to five full-time workers.
Mr. Palmquist, whose group focuses on equal rights and justice for gay people,
said the efforts were making inroads. Although there is “hostility in some
parts of the state” toward gay people, he said, education on gay matters and
greater visibility of gay people were leading to more open-mindedness.
“But we’ve still got a long way to go.”
He said his group, like many other nonprofit organizations in gay life, has
started to win grants from more general philanthropies. The group recently
won a grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the largest and most
influential philanthropy in North Carolina. The Reynolds Foundation was
started by the family that founded the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, but the
family and the foundation today are not connected to the company.
“It shows very clearly how things are changing,” Mr. Palmquist said, when
financing for gay causes is coming from “these kinds of large, broad-based
philanthropies.”
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