A Gay United Way?
Samara and the Vermont Community Foundation

by Euan Bear

Samara Executive Director Bill Lippert

       The Vermont Unity Project, a joint operation of the Samara Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation, recently announced its push to raise $200,000 in Vermont for use by the GLBT community. The kick-off event was held on March 25 in the executive dining room of Vermont Life in Montpelier and featured Nancy Cunningham, executive director of the National Lesbian and Gay Community Funding Partnership. “As the leader in the country on lesbian and gay civil/family rights Vermont provides an ideal environment for a successful partnership between national, state and local funders to support the grow ing needs of the LGBT community,” Cunningham wrote in a press release.
      The funds would be used to secure a $100,000 challenge grant from the National Lesbian and Gay Community Funding Partnership.
      The challenge grant comes from a consortium of major nonprofit foundations, including the Aaron Diamond Foundation, the Gill Foundation, the David Geffen Foundation, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Open Society Institute (George Soros), the Levi Strauss Foundation, and the Philip Morris Companies, among others.
      Responding to a question characterizing the new fund drive as an effort to build a Vermont ‘gay United Way,’ Samara Executive Director Bill Lippert said, “I wouldn’t choose the United Way as a metaphor – our mission, our vision is bigger – to support and strengthen the community today and build an endowment for tomorrow.”
      If the Project meets its goal to raise $200,000, the funds will be “re-granted” to gay and lesbian organizations and projects within Vermont. Of the total $300,000 in funds raised and matched, up to $50,000 may be applied for and sequestered in an endowment fund for the future. Another portion – $10,000 – is held aside for “administrative costs,” leaving a total of $240,000 for actual grants within the community.
      If the project raises only $100,000 in matching funds, half of the challenge grant will be released for regranting.
      “The beauty of this project,” explained Lippert, “is that it’s new dollars raised from outside the community. And it exposes new significant donors to our community’s needs, increasing their potential to donate to additional projects outside this campaign. The Vermont Community Foundation is offering us entry into a community of donors we have so far been unable to access.” Once these new “ally” donors are “engaged,” they are more likely to donate again, even after this particular campaign ends, Lippert maintained.
      “Our well-being is essentially their well-being. They know us as gay or lesbian or transgender members of their families or as co-workers. Or they become allies because we are a part of their political or ethical agenda with regard to fairness and justice,” Lippert said.
   An advisory committee has been formed to “assess” the community’s needs, primarily through questionnaires given to organizations and selected individuals. “There really has not been a broad community needs assessment until now,” Lippert said.
      The Vermont Community Fund is essentially already an umbrella organization, managing the application process for about 60 separate funds, including the Vermont Women’s Fund, and has a permanent endowment of over $70 million. It granted $6 million in 1999 to Vermont projects. The Vermont Community Fund and the Samara Foundation have both awarded small grants to Mountain Pride Media, the publisher of Out in the Mountains: VCF a challenge grant of $2000 (requiring matching funds to be raised by June) for the electronic archives of OITM; Samara a general grant of $4000.
      According to the National Lesbian and Gay Community Funding Partnership, less than 0.3 percent of all charitable dollars are given to gay and lesbian issues each year. The object is to make other major philanthropic organizations aware of the needs of the LGBT community that meet their criteria.
      To date, 29 local partnerships have joined the NLGCF Partnership since it began, most in large cities, although there’s a Maine Community Foundation partner sponsoring the Maine Equity Fund.
      The Vermont Unity Project Advisory Committee includes lesbian and gay members and members from the straight “ally” community. The Advisory Committee members are committing time and energy to raising $200,000 in Vermont, as well as to guiding the application and selection process when the funds are released. Current members are Tiffany Bluemle, John Crane, Ellen Dorsch, Barb Dozetos, Kevin Ellis, Penrose Jackson, Nat Kinney, Bennett Law, Deb Schoenberg, Sondra Solomon, Don Vickers, and Suzi Wizowaty.
      Lippert made clear several times during an interview that the new partnership is not competing with Samara or other LGBT groups for monies that members of our community have traditionally donated to local groups. The committee will work very hard, he declared, to discourage any diversion of annual giving from current projects and organizations to the new funding entity. “The object is to increase giving, not to re-direct it,” he said.
      In addition, Lippert said that Samara is committed to continue granting funds to projects, organizations and scholarships during the lifetime of the Vermont Unity Project. Samara will award up to $40,000 in grants and scholarships this year.