Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly has done the LGBT community a great service by writing the article "State of Play," continuing the great tradition of the Washington Blade in listing and summarizing the staff sizes and annual budgets of the largest or most visible LGBT organizations in the country.
Unfortunately, he only focused only on the organizations which are involved in the fight over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," not every LGBT organization of national significance like the Washington Blade used to.
The main things to note are the relative sizes of Human Rights Campaign ($37 million, 142 employees), Lambda Legal ($15.6 million, 85 employees) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force ($8.6 million, 47 employees) which are probably the three largest LGBT advocacy organizations in the country, with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation either in 3rd or 4th place.
Hat/tip to Joe.My.God
Is it odd that even though I've been part of a GSA group four five years, the only one of these groups I'm familiar with is HRC? It's heartening to hear that LGBT organizations are growing in size, but to reach the general populations maybe a new marketing approach would help make a big impact. HR even has facebook apps (http://www.facebook.com/humanrightscampaign) - unless groups mass market themselves, the impact will probably be limited to those to are specifically looking for LGBT rights groups.
ReplyDeleteIt's not surprising that HRC would be the one you would have heard of, it is by FAR the largest of the groups (it used to be over $40 million but has been impacted by the recession).
ReplyDeleteAlso, there's no denying the blue and yellow "equal sign" logo is brilliant marketing.
It's very heartening to see that these groups are able to push for reform and make a real difference in LGBT lives. I particularly like the dual-organization of some of the groups that allows them to act as a more cohesive unit.
ReplyDeleteThe size of some of the staffs surprised me though, considering all the press and the determination of some of these organizations, I expected larger paid staffs. I think that most of the organization is volunteer-based is even more heartening :)