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.

It's one of the most common questions we're asked: How do state groups grow the number of LGBT people financially supporting our work?And now, we have some real answers. Or, at least, the beginning of some real answers.

Aaron Welo is an at-large director and the Treasurer for the Equality Federation. He is currently an associate with Thompson Coburn LLP in St. Louis, where he practices in the firm's business litigation group on a variety of class and complex litigation matters.