MassEquality plots its future

With the marriage debate done for now, the MassEquality Board of Directors voted on July 18 to retain a consultant to help the organization determine its future. Meanwhile, the organization has turned its daily attention toward other projects, most notably supporting pro-equality legislators and developing a resource to help LGBT organizations in other states replicate MassEquality's successful campaign model.

"We're going to be doing significant planning over the next couple months to really chart a future course for MassEquality," said Solomon, who expects the process to be completed some time in the fall. He later added, "We're not stopping work for a second" during the planning process.

In leading the fight to protect the Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 Goodridge decision from being overturned by constitutional amendments, MassEquality established itself both as a political force in Massachusetts politics and as a model of grassroots campaigning for statewide LGBT organizations nationwide. But because the organization's singular mission is to defend equal marriage rights in Massachusetts, after the defeat of the anti-gay marriage amendment at the June 14 constitutional convention (ConCon), its board must now confront the question of whether it will exist into the future and, if so, in what capacity.

"We need to engage in very traditional strategic planning," said Ellen Zucker, chair of the MassEquality board. The hiring of a professional consultant, she said, "will help us create a careful and effective and respectful strategic planning process. We want it to be expeditious and effective."

Prospective consultants will be interviewed beginning next week, said Solomon. Among the consultant's tasks, he said, will be to help the board examine and understand the various elements that comprise MassEquality, from the numerous grassroots affiliate organizations that have sprung up across the state, to individual members, donors and the nearly 60 organizations that are coalition partners. He added that the consultant would also take into account existing resources in the LGBT community to determine the community's needs. "It's really [about] helping our board have the information that it needs to figure out whether MassEquality should continue and if it does continue what it should be doing," said Solomon of the consultant's role in the strategic planning process.

"MassEquality is such a huge effort that the only way to really capture what it can be, what it should be and whether it should be, is to have a serious process," said Solomon, noting that members of affiliate organizations rightfully feel "as much ownership of the organization as some of the people in Boston. We need to pull it all together and look at it in a comprehensive way because it's the only way to make the smartest decision."

As the MassEquality board weighs the organization's future, daily work continues. Most importantly, the organization has set about offering support to the nine legislators who switched from supporting to opposing the amendment between the Jan. 2 ConCon and the June 14 session and the two freshman lawmakers who had campaigned on support for the amendment last fall but ultimately decided to vote against it. To that end, MassEquality Development Director Scott Gortikov has been working with some of the organization's major donors - gay and straight - to steer campaign contributions to the newest crop of pro-equality legislators, who may be vulnerable in next year's elections because of their vote switch. Gortikov declined to name specific legislators who have benefited from his work thus far. But he said the lawmakers have noted the organization's support. "We've gotten a great response," said Gortikov. "Some of these legislators have already been thanking us because they've had a great response already."

Gortikov called protecting the supermajority of pro-equality legislators "the most important initiative we're doing right now," particularly in light of a July 24 Boston Globe article detailing the decision by VoteOnMarriage.org, the organization that sponsored the last anti-gay marriage amendment, to forgo an attempt to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2010 and instead focus on ousting pro-equality lawmakers.

Besides steering major donors toward potentially imperiled pro-equality legislators, MassEquality is also encouraging its members to attend fundraisers for their respective lawmakers. On July 12, for example, members of the affiliate group Quincy for Marriage Equality were a visible presence at Sen. Michael Morrissey's annual fundraiser at Waterworks, a Quincy nightspot. Jerry Ringuette, a co-founder of Quincy for Marriage Equality, said he handed out 30 stickers bearing the group's logo and the statement "Thank you Sen. Morrissey" within 15 minutes of arriving at the event. He estimates that anywhere from 75 to 100 members of the group attended the event for Morrissey, who switched his vote after an intense lobbying campaign by pro-equality forces. Ringuette said it was his first time attending Morrissey's annual fundraiser. "I never felt I could support him until now," he said.

Beyond campaign contributions, MassEquality members are making their support for vote switchers visible in other ways, said Solomon. For instance, in a Fourth of July parade in state Sen. Gale Candaras's Western Mass. district, a crowd of marriage equality supporters turned up waving signs thanking Candaras for coming around to the cause of equality after several years of anti-equality votes. "I'm really proud of our affiliates and our members ... who have really taken the time to thank legislators," said Solomon. "That's been very much noted."

With no immediate threat to marriage equality in the Bay State, MassEquality staffers have also taken the time to share their expertise with their counterparts in other states. Marriage Equality Rhode Island Co-Chair Jenn Steinfeld recently spent some time discussing development strategy with Gortikov and field operations with MassEquality Field Director Amy Mello. "Scott and Amy have been very generous in sharing their experiences of winning marriage, and helping us expand our work in Rhode Island," Steinfeld said in an email. "I look forward to continuing to work more closely with them in the coming months."

LGBT activists in Ohio, said Solomon, recently reached out to the organization for help creating a plan to recruit business and civic leaders to the cause of equality, a strategy MassEquality pioneered last year. Solomon said he shared the relevant information and materials to help guide the Ohio activists in mustering the local business community to their cause. Gortikov said that he's also offered assistance to activists in Connecticut, Oregon and Washington.

Providing such assistance is part of a larger effort on which MassEquality is working to craft a comprehensive handbook of "best practices" for those toiling for LGBT equality in other states. Gortikov, who said he's just begun to do some fundraising for the project, said the proposed resource is tentatively titled, "The MassEquality Model - A Manual for Winning Marriage Equality."

"We've got this idea that while we have the staff ... before documents and data and institutional knowledge get lost, let's put together a usable story to model the processes, the best practices, the techniques, the dos and don'ts," Gortikov explained. He envisions an online and/or print publication that also includes appendices containing the documents and tools created and utilized by MassEquality, from fundraising letters to canvassing scripts.

Solomon characterized the proposed manual as a return for national organizations that invested in the Bay State's marriage battle. "[MassEquality had] a lot of local funders," Solomon observes, "but also, plenty of national funders invested in our work in Massachusetts, and we want to make the work available across the country."

That's not to say that there isn't any jockeying for the organization's expertise closer to home. The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) of which MassEquality is a member organization, on July 17 sent a letter to the MassEquality board of directors asking that the organization step up to the plate on the effort to pass a bill that would outlaw discrimination based on gender identity or expression and enhance penalties against perpetrators of crimes motivated by the victim's gender identity or expression. MTPC Co-Chair Holly Ryan declined to make a copy of the letter available to Bay Windows. But she said it included specific requests for Solomon's help in lobbying for the bill's passage at the State House and the communications expertise of Melissa Threadgill, a consultant hired by MassEquality in the run-up to the June 14 ConCon.

Ryan said the letter was timed to coincide with the recent MassEquality board meeting and with the knowledge that the organization was going to be undertaking a strategic planning process to determine its future course. "So we just wanted to let them know that we still wanted their help if they were going to still be here," said Ryan.

Zucker declined to comment on MTPC's request for help, stating that it was an issue that had yet to be discussed by the MassEquality board. Ryan said that the board has not yet responded to MTPC's letter, nor did she expect them to so quickly.

Ryan said that this is the first time MTPC has reached out to the MassEquality board for help on the transgender rights bill. Both she and fellow MTPC Co-Chair Gunner Scott said that though they have long had conversations with MassEquality staff members about the bill, they recognized that the organization's primary focus was on securing marriage equality. Now, said Scott, "If they're going to continue as a GLBT equality organization we'd like, of course, for them to focus on the trans bill that's currently pending."

Solomon agreed that the LGBT community must turn its attention to securing protections for transgender people. "Passing an aggressive transgender civil rights bill that protects transgender people from hate crimes and discrimination has got to be a top community priority," he said.

Whether or not MassEquality will be lending its expertise on that effort is, like its long-term future, an open question. But Scott, for one, expressed his belief that there's a place for MassEquality on the local political landscape should the organization decide to broaden its mission. "They've built a very strong statewide organization," said Scott, adding that the organization has made a name for itself both locally and nationally. "I think it would be a detriment to both the state as well as the ... national LGBT movement to have them disband," he added. "But I think what is the most important thing for them is to widen their primary mission, to talk about LGBT equality across the spectrum and to collaborate with smaller organizations like MTPC and other groups that are grassroots and give them the support and expertise they've learned."

Though MassEquality has apparently not been resting on its laurels, the organization is, in fact, in the midst of planning a large-scale celebration aimed at thanking the cast of thousands that helped secure marriage equality in Massachusetts. Gortikov sums up the challenge of appropriately honoring everyone this way: "How do you thank a movement? No one has enough plaques." Solomon said that challenge is forcing the organization to get creative in planning the event, which is on track for the fall. "It's going to be innovative and creative and a really cool way to say thank you," he promised.