Shenandoah Valley Friends
Reprinted from: The Washington Blade
Friday, December 12, 1997
Untapped Majority Stirs
Information technology may help explain growth in number of donors to Gay groups
by Lou Chibbaro Jr. and Lisa Keen
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| (by Douglas C. Wright) |
The number of people who gave money to the nation's six largest Gay political organizations increased by a whopping 82 percent during the past two years, a signal that the Gay community's untapped "silent majority" is beginning to stir a bit more than it has in the past.
According to a biennial survey by the Blade of national Gay political groups, the number of individual contributors to the big six Gay political groups increased from 203,000 in 1995 to 370,000 in 1997.
The survey shows that the number of people who contributed to the same six groups since 1993, the year of the last national march on Washington, increased by 161 percent -- from 141,465 in 1993 to 370,000 this year.
While these are significant increases in numbers, the numbers continue to suggest that a very small percentage of the adult Gay population gives money to national Gay political organizations.
If Gay adults constitute 4.3 percent of the general population (as an average of studies would suggest), then there are approximately 11.5 million Gay adults in the United States. Thus, 370,000 donors represent only about 3.2 percent of those Gay adults.
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The 3.2 percent figure marks an increase above both 1993 and 1995, when the Blade survey indicated that only about 1.2 percent of the estimated adult Gay population contributed money to the national Gay political groups in 1993 and 1995.
But the findings suggest that the vast number of Gay people in the country still have yet to give money to the groups organized to advance Gay civil rights in the political arena.
One possible reason for the increase in the number of donors in the past two years, according to officials with some of the groups, is that many Gay organizations have leapt into the information age. The Blade survey found that during the past two years, the six largest Gay political groups, along with four others, have set up sites on the World Wide Web to reach thousands of potential supporters. Many of the groups use e-mail to send out instant "alerts" to their members about new developments on the Gay civil rights front. Most include Web site information about how to join their groups and how to contribute money.
The survey found that while the budgets of a few groups declined during the past two years, the budgets of most national Gay political and civil rights organizations (there are 11 in all) continued to grow. And the survey, which is based on information supplied by the Gay groups responding to a Blade questionnaire and interviews, found that the combined budgets of all 11 organizations increased by 29 percent over the past two years, from about $19 million in 1995 to about $25 million in 1997.
The Human Rights Campaign continues to hold the position of the largest of the national Gay political groups, with a projected income of $12 million for 1997. The next largest group, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which specializes in litigation, had a projected 1997 income of $3.1 million.
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HRC, which began with the largest base of donors, also pulled in the largest number of new donors during the past two years. Its list of individual donors increased from 100,000 in 1995 to 200,000 in 1997, according to figures provided by HRC. HRC now has more individual donors than the combined number of donors (170,000) of the other five members of the "big six" Gay political groups.
The Blade began conducting its biennial survey of national Gay political groups in March 1987 when there were only six national Gay political and civil rights groups. Following the 1987 national Gay march on Washington, the Gay civil rights movement experienced a burst of growth in the number of national Gay groups, and those already in existence began experiencing growth themselves.
The top six groups in 1987 had a combined budget of just $3.2 million; in 1989, the combined budgets of the six largest groups jumped 84 percent, to $5.9 million. The combined budgets of the six groups increased by 48 percent, to $8.8 million, from 1989 to 1991; and by 42 percent, to $12.6 million, from 1991 to 1993.
An April 1993 national Gay march on Washington, which drew between 650,000 and 1 million Gay people to the nation's capital, also resulted in a surge of money into the coffers of many of the national groups.
With these changes, the Blade's analysis for the biennial survey has evolved over the years to include a larger number of groups and a more extensive look at the organizations. (Initially, the Blade looked at only income and the number of employees who worked for the groups. Today, the Blade includes 11 national organizations in its survey of national Gay political and civil rights groups and seeks out a wider variety of factors, including income, active donor base, the size of mailing lists, and major accomplishments and priorities.)
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The focus of the analysis is on those national Gay groups whose primary purpose is to work for Gay political and civil rights gains. The analysis does not attempt to compare these groups to nonpolitical organizations, such as the Metropolitan Community Church, whose primary purpose is to provide religious communion, or to organizations whose primary purpose is to organize athletic events or provide networking among specific professions.
The data reported and the analysis provided is based on information supplied by the groups themselves.
Among the national groups that join this year's survey are the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, which was founded as a regional group in 1988 but organized nationally in 1995.
Similar to its findings in past years, this year's survey shows that the combined budgets of the national Gay groups pale in comparison to the budgets of the nation's religious right groups, which devote much of their resources to opposing Gay civil rights.
According to People For the American Way, a pro-Gay group that monitors religious right groups, the Christian Broadcasting Network alone had a budget of $212 million in 1996, a figure more than eight times greater than the combined budgets of the 11 Gay organizations.
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People For the American Way said the 1996 figures for the religious right groups are the latest budget numbers available for those groups.
The six largest religious right groups, including CBN and the Christian Coalition, had combined budgets in 1996 of $379,800,000. The combined budgets of the six Gay organizations, $22,700,000, equals about 6 percent of the religious right's "big six."
This year's survey found that all but one of the 11 national Gay groups -- the National Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organization (LLEGO) -- have established sites on the World Wide Web. LLEGO officials say they are in the process of setting up such a site.
The Human Rights Campaign, which leads the pack with the most elaborate "Gay" Web site, says information age technology associated with the Internet and the Web has the potential for greatly strengthening the Gay movement.
HRC official Phil Attey, who operates the HRC Web site, says large numbers of closeted Gays are becoming involved in HRC's Gay civil rights activities through their computer screens. Mark Tadlock, development director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), says GLAAD now has a special e-mail list of GLAAD supporters, to which it sends information at least once a week. He said the group's weekly e-mail "alerts" cost a tiny fraction of what the group would have to pay for old-fashioned mail through the postal service.
Although anti-Gay groups associated with the religious right are also beginning to use the Internet, Tadlock said, information age technology helps the "underdog" groups in the Gay movement because it enables them to reach vast numbers of people at a low cost.
The Blade survey this year also showed that the size of individual contributions has gone down $25 per contributor -- from about $86 per contributor in 1993 and 1995 to about $61 per contributor in 1997.
The reason for the smaller size of individual donations could not be determined by the data available from the Blade survey. However, it is not necessarily a reflection of individual donors deciding to give less than they did in 1993 or 1995. It could reflect the fact that some donors split their contributions between multiple organizations or, more likely, that the larger number of overall donors now include people whose incomes are smaller.
The following profiles of the nation's 11 national Gay political organizations show, among other things, how the groups have adopted their own specialized niche in their efforts to advance Gay civil rights.
| Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund |
Kai Wright and Nicholas Boggs contributed to this report.
Copyright © 1997 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community.
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