Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
Executive Director Betsy Smith has been leading EqualityMaine for fourteen years. After securing many incredible wins for LGBT Mainers, she has announced that she will soon step down from her position. Before Betsy officially leaves the Federation family (though we'll always count her as one of our own), we wanted to learn everything we could from her work and experience. So we caught up with her to talk about her successful tenure at EqualityMaine.
Every day, the momentum for full marriage equality across this country builds. And our members are right in the thick of this critical work, achieving some major victories. Just look at what’s been happening these past ten months.
For years, our members have requested assistance and guidance in the area of communications. And although we have always been able to connect state groups with resources and provide some useful advice, we simply weren’t equipped to offer comprehensive communications support.
Our final FEDtalk given at the Summer Meeting 2013 is from John Smallwood, Advocacy & Organizing Director at Fair Wisconsin.
Our ninth FEDtalk given at the Summer Meeting 2013 is from Shannon McCann, Intern at Equality Utah.
The State Equality Fund (SEF) has announced its new guidelines for 2014 and issued an invitation for letters of inquiry (LOI).For the past eight years, Federation members have used support from SEF to make huge policy advances that improve the lives of LGBT people in their state. And at the Federation, we're eager to help even more of our state groups take advantage of this critical funding stream.
Dear President Obama, as advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans and their families – including an estimated 267,000 undocumented LGBT Americans – we write to join the call for you to take swift executive action to suspend mass immigration detention and deportations.
A few weeks ago, our board chairs shared some exciting news: we are expanding the board to include more at-large members! This growth will allow the Federation to continue serving state-based organizations to the highest degree and advancing equality in all the communities we call home.
Your supporter list in Salsa is one of your organization’s greatest assets. It’s the people who care about the work you do, who give you their time, who contribute their dollars -- all to support your efforts to win equality. Keeping this list up-to-date and accurate supports all of your work -- from communications to development to organizing.
Summer Meeting 2014 is just a few months away, and it’s shaping up to be the best one yet — especially with the addition of a special members-only program. This year, with support from Arcus Foundation, we’re bringing in our friends from The Management Center to share their Managing to Change the World training — only with Federation members.
About a year ago, as I was starting my new job as Director of Communications at Equality Federation, I realized I had a unique opportunity to achieve a personal goal: to build up the communications expertise of the state-based movement.
Nothing is as inspiring as a gathering of grassroots activists to remind you of the power of communities organizing for change.
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With your support, we'll be able to continue our work to build the leaders of today and tomorrow, strengthen state-based LGBTQ+ organizations, and make critical progress on the issues that matter most—like protecting transgender people, ending HIV criminalization and ensuring access to care, and banning conversion therapy across the country.
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