Gay rights organizations have a storied history of juicing their “membership” numbers so they look more powerful and can claim more reach than reality might suggest is possible. The Human Rights Campaign, for instance, claims 750,00 members — which, if true, would suggest a full 0.2 percent of the entire American population belongs to HRC. How does the organization count “membership”? By including everyone who’s ever donated even $1 to the organization. (HRC refuses to say how many people are actively paying dues.) It’s this non-transparency among Gay Inc. that led Bob Roehr, a D.C. correspondent for the Bay Area Reporter, to quiz the Courage Campaign’s Rick Jacobs on how he counts membership. Guess what? He’s still waiting for a response.
The Courage Campaign claims 700,000 members (though Wikipedia says it’s just 400,000, a number that hasn’t changed since at least February). Indeed, that’s just 50,000 fewer than HRC, even though HRC started in the 1980s, and the Courage Campaign has been around for just a handful of years.
And Roehr, among others, wants to know how Jacobs counts members. (To be sure, CC’s website says it is “an online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots activists”; so if that’s not 700,000 “members,” we’d still like to know how they came up with that figure.)
It’s a fair question, given the Courage Campaign actively solicits donations from the community in its email blasts every few days, and asks us to rely on it for gay activism in California. And why is knowing the true figure so important? Because it will give us one more piece of information to know just how effective CC is in the struggle for our rights.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
So far, Jacobs remains silent, according to Roehr, who notes, “I asked these questions a week ago and still haven’t received any answers. They are pretty basic ones and important to how one views an organization, the people behind it, their motivations, and the ability to put an organization within a context of other organizations.”
You can argue this is a non-issue, or that we’re unfairly attacking Jacobs and his organization. Neither is true. We’re just asking for some transparency — and if you care about the equal rights fight in California, or elsewhere, you should demand the same thing.
VegasTeaRoom
They will never release their data because the data leads to MOOLAH. Most of the memberships overlap and donations rotate. What HRC doesn’t want known is how much money comes from a truly small part of the bloated membership. And you wonder why their politics and philosophy clash on occasion? Follow DA MONEY!
bigjake75
Most of these groups, regardless of their issue, exist to provide jobs for the ones running it and their friends. And they get to hob knob with the powerful and feel like they are part of the ruling class. What a joke!
Gus
If you buy a bumper sticker, you are a member for life.
I’m still trying to figure out if ‘membership has privilages.”
Bob Roehr
Thanks for spreading the word. At least as important as the definition of who is counted as a member is the question I asked (and also have not had answered) on who owns or controls use of the list and contact info gathered in the name of the community.
Is it an asset for the community or is it the personal property of whoever runs the organization? Can it be rented out for profit? Used for partisan purposes? People can have varying views on the appropriateness of such actions, but at the very least they should know those facts when they “join” an organization.
edgyguy1426
I used to give HRC $10 a month directly from my ccard, I suppose I was an unwitting dupe in their machine (ugh)
Geoff
I want to give money to gay causes…I have money to give, but I feel paralyzed sometimes because I want to donate where the funds will actually…effectively…go to advance gay rights. What do you do? Are there any out there?
Cam
HRC even includes people who HAVEN’T donated to them. It was raining one time and I bought a hoodie in the HRC store in DC. I started getting mail and phone calls from them a year later asking me to renew my membership. I’d never donated. Well when I checked it turned out that they claim that purchasing something from them is the same thing as joining.
SOS
If “member” counts as an email address, I am three of Courage’s “700,000” even though I want nothing to do with the rest of their “progressive agenda” outside of marriage equality.
schlukitz
@Geoff:
You bring up a point that I have long pondered. As an ex-member of HRC, I too wondered where all this money that they collect goes to and what it it used for.
Buying a building in Wash. DC, valued at some $28,000,000.00 and taking a 30 year mortgage doesn’t strike me as a very effective way to get civil-rights for the LGBT community.
Neither, does the drawing of $338,000.00 as an annual salary (plus perks) by Joe Salmonese, the President, which is only $60K less than Obama gets, to do social work, does not strike me as acceptable, especially when it is the membership who pays his salary and for the cushy leather seat he sit on in a cushy air-conditioned office.
If organizations like HRC have nothing to hide, then why are they unwilling to show proof of their claim to have 750,000 members and why is no information available anywhere as to their accountability? Do they not owe some explanation to the very people who make their existence possible?
If their membership figures are to be believed, at a minimum contribution of $35.00 for membership, that comes to $26,500,000.00 annual income. That does not included memberships that gave a higher contribution or special donations from various sources.
Where is all that money going besides into someone’s pockets?
And we scorn the Mormons and the Roman Catholic churchs for not divulging the sources or amount of their income? The people who are supposedly representing our best interests, do not seem to me to be any better than those who are up front about being our enemies.
The government takes your money and squanders it. The Church takes your money and squanders it and the Gay organizations take your money and squander it.
What do you do?
Keep the money in your pocket. Suckers don’t go to heaven, despite what they tell you. ;P
Larry Glinzman
Go online and read the HRC’s annual 990 filed with the IRS. It lists everything you’re asking for, who gets what and what was done with the money and where it came from.
Gay people seem particularly unprepared to support each other thru organizations for our benefit, unlike other groups that have had them for generations. The NAACP and the UJA are the same kind of thing. Without them, African-Americans and Jews would be even worse off.
As in ALL organizations, 10% of the “members” “volunteers” or ‘donors” give 90% of the money and the attempt to count everyone who has contact with the prganization is to provide some sense of strength when approaching people in power to get changes made.
Stop complaining and do something. Volunteer your time if you won’t give money. All non profit civil rights groups need letter writers, visitors to go to politicans and make the case for equality and many other things.
Suckers are the people who sit back and let other people do the work for them, only you need to add the word blood before the sucker part. Stop complaining and do something.
Gary
This reminds me of how the mormon church saves the souls of dead people without the consent of their families in order to get the numbers up and legitimize the for-profit geneology scam.
I’m embarrassed to say that I supported the HRC. I cut off the apron strings after the last Seattle fundraiser . . .black tie at the Westin that I’m sure barely broke even after paying to fly in Joe, his Partner & Ross Mathews etc. It was a disgusting display of hubris IMOP.
I’m still listed as a “member” I’m sure, as is my Partner and our respective Familes . .so you can delete 12+ from the HRC roster.
Obama still counts me as a supporter as well, even though I’ve asked to be deleted I still get spam from Axelrod.
schlukitz
@Larry Glinzman:
No doubt, you are an Obamatron as well. Sticking up for those who are failing us miserably.
But, your self-righteous is most appalling of all. Telling other people what “they should be doing”, as if no one else but you is doing anything worthwhile.
When we Americans see an epic fail, it’s our right to call them out on it. It’s called Freedom of Speech. Check it out in the Constitution.
Don’t like that? Then go live in Cuba or some other Communist country.
schlukitz
Michael Petrelis raises the very same questions we are asking, one of which, is lack of transparency about their operation.
And, this report was made way back in March, 2007…
http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2007/03/hrcs-two-irs-990-files-30.html
Jackson
Queerty: Using Wikipedia as a source? Really?
TANK
What’s wrong with wikipedia as a source on queerty? This isn’t the journal of symbolic logic.
Strepsi
RE: “”an online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots activists”
I’ll bet you a dollar that “netroot activists” translates to “Site Hits”
(I’d wager not even “Unique Visitors”)
TANK
A dollar? That’s confidence.
jwbcubed
@Gus: It does in my book.
jwbcubed
@Gus: But I think that’s a membership to a “health” club.
Movement Guy
Others have rightly pointed out that HRC inflates its numbers enormously. As someone working in the movement, it’s a bit frustrating. More frustrating is that they don’t really use those contacts for anything substantive. On its face, 700,000 contacts is a bit of a joke. As someone pointed out, their are multiple email address for one person. Similarly, email addresses can be done away with fairly easily, or just no longer checked. For example, we have about 14,500 email address in our system. Only about 2,500 people open our emails on a regular basis. I think that’s probably an average for most organizations.
Daniel
HRC has done a good job increasing the number of states that have marriage equality; they were helpful in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Iowa. And with more states providing equality it makes it easier to get legislation passed at the federal level. HRC is not perfect but now that Joe Solmonese [however you spell it] is heading it up, it has become way more practical as an organization than it ever has in the past.
California was going to lose no matter what. Look at which counties in California actually have GLBT organizations – it’s not as many as you think. In fact, aside from coastal orgs in California, the state had little GLBT infrastructure inland. California (and many states) need to focus on strengthening their GLBT infrastructure in the rural areas. Whenever I read people surprised that Iowa, for instance, is more advanced than some other states like California I immediately think: Are you kidding? Des Moines had a GLBT community center before San Francisco. Iowa had a statewide GLBT and Ally student group before most other states including California. States including Hawaii, Georgia, West Virginia, and Louisiana still don’t have statewide education groups.
Instead of a national march on Washington, people need to quite whining and being grandiose, and do the actual grunt work required for equality. Does your town have a GLBT and Ally (don’t leave out allies ever) group? If not, start one, use myspace and/or facebook and/or twitter. Is your town small? Than organize your group at the county level, or include some nearby towns and make it part of your county (the east part of blah-blah county, the north part… etc.)? Organizing at the local level empowers the entire country and gives you something meaningful to do. That’s where to start. The resources for a national march are better spent on local organizing which ultimately has the biggest impact.
Darrien
I get that Queerty believes in holding gay organisations to account – and I believe it’s a valuable thing to do. However, at some stage, Queerty will have to nail its colours to the mast and says what it actually believes in rather than sit on the sidelines and criticise what everyone else does.
I seriously appreciate that Queerty holds people’s feet to the fire, but at some stage there’s going to have to be an offer of an alternative, effective policy.
Percival
Most non-profits inflate their membership numbers as much as they can so they can appear stronger for donors. People who give money like to know that an organization is going strong and an indicator of that is how many people donate.
All non-profits ALSO make reports available to their donors (and the general public) on an annual basis – annual reports for HRC going back about 10 years can be found here: http://www.hrc.org/about_us/7036.htm.
Also, black tie affairs and fancy “galas” are just a reality in fundraising. Yes, they’re decadent, but the people who attend these events usually give VASTLY larger sums of money than what they paid for a ticket, and even those are usually pricier than the face value. It’s really the only way to court the people who are sympathetic to your cause who have money to throw around.
Cameron Monagle
@Daniel:
I agree with your sentiment about local organizing, BUT I’d like to disagree that HRC was AT ALL helpful in New Hampshire. The work was done by NH Freedom To Marry with a few pointless gestures from HRC VERY late in the game. Mo Baxley, the head of NHFTM did the brunt of the work. HRC was not involved at all (except for sending one field staffer for three days for a state senate race that we lost).
Paul
HRC is a crummy organization that does not deserve our dollars and minutes.
Like many here, I used to give lots of money and a lot of my time fundraising for this club of wanna be gay elites. I finally realized about 6 years ago that it was just a big bag of empty stuffed shirts with nowhere else to go.
Long before I quit the HRC, I shared with them my concerns of their focus, their sophmoric cliquey events and unwelcoming attitude towards anyone who was not considered an insider. I made my views known via phone conversations, voice mails left with staffers and through multiple emails. Never once did I ever get a response to what I considered rational and reasonable questions of their activities and political focus and fundraising issues.
No, they did not want to hear my questions or complaints. I never even received as much as a ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’. Why, because they are a bunch of arrogant assholes who never gave a shit about any gay person not in the top ruling clique of each US city, mostly comprised of desperate queens with poor selfesteem.
So, I reluctantly moved on. I am still sad about it, but after witnessing their ever quickening march into inconsequential miasma, I now feel rather validated in my actions.
Folks, there are many other good to great people and orgainizations out there who need our support. Choose wisely. Don’t choose HRC.
Daniel
I should have been more specific. I was referring to HRC helping to get the New Hampshire legislature flipped to control by Democrats so the vote could/would even take place in NH.
Masonwasp
I gave a small amount to HRC a few years ago and have been spammed non-stop by their telemarketing contractor – despite having asked to be removed from their calling list no less than four times.
I’ve been in non-profit development for 11 years and find this disgraceful. I have filed a federal complaint against them – not that it will do much good. But there you go.
Unlike some of you, I am not one to complain about where my contributions are being spent. A non-profit is still a business in a highly-competitive industry. If you want professional staff and the best product, you must pay professional salaries. The days of trust-fund babies running your non-profit with virtually no pay are long over.
Chris
We got so far offtrack. this is about the courage campaign and their numbers. Follow the money and follow the activities they do. you’ll find it’s a huge lie to say they have 700,000 members, why wouldn’t they be willing to answer the question, honestly, directly? something to hide?! YEP!
Ask to see their offices (or lack thereof)!