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DignityUSA
PO Box 376
Medford, MA
02155
tel: 800.877.8797
202.861.0017
fax: 781.397.0584
email:
info@dignityusa.org
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RETURN TO > CONVENTION 2007 > HOME
Sam’s Friday Luncheon Speech in Austin
DignityUSA 18th Biennial Convention
Austin, Texas, July 6, 2007
Sam Sinnett, President, DignityUSA
Good afternoon, DignityUSA !
Peggy Burns’ and my two-term, four-year period as vice-president and president of DignityUSA is winding down and ends September 30, with our new officers and a new Board of Directors taking over October 1, 2007. It’s been a long and eventful journey from our Las Vegas convention through Philadelphia to here in Austin.
In a slightly humorous vein, the last four years can be summed up as two Popes and two Executive Directors. Much has gone on in our Church and within our organization. The old Chinese blessing or curse is that one live in “interesting times,” so I guess we have been much “blessed!”
Let me talk first about some highlights within our organization.
DignityUSA’s mission is to work for respect and justice for all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons in the Catholic Church and the world through education, advocacy and support. Much work to advance our great mission has gone on over the last four years, and certainly since I last spoke to you in Philadelphia two years ago.
DignityUSA is the Voice of GLBT Catholics and our families and friends in our Church and in society and the world. For various reasons, many of our members and other GLBT Catholics cannot speak for themselves. So if we don’t speak, who will? Our marvelous website archives an astounding 73 different press releases, statements and other instances of “Dignity in the News” in the past four years. We have spoken out or been sought out by the media on a wide range of topics, including:
- Bishops’ refusal of Baptism, Communion and even the Rite of Christian burial to members of the GLBT Catholic community,
- Same-sex marriage and other forms of support for our commitments, in various US states, Canada and Europe
- Attempts to exclude gay candidates from seminaries
- Adoption of children by same-sex couples
- Bishop Gumbleton’s forced retirement
- The Papal transition
and many others.
Imagine how many millions of people have heard our Voice presenting a positive, faith-based, holistic perspective on the lives and gifts of GLBT Catholics and our families.
In addition, we have compiled an amazing archive of the weekly Breath of the Spirit homilies, the monthly Datelines and the quarterly QV’s. We also commissioned Catholic theologian Patricia Beatty Jung to write the excellent theological paper “The Call to Wed: Why Catholics Should Celebrate Same-Sex Marriage.” This and numerous other such resources are on our website for all to see including some excellent ones last year related to the ex-gay movement to cure homosexuality.
There is astounding depth and breadth to our communications. We even had one state legislator tell us our web postings influenced her vote in support of civil unions. She wrote:
Dear DignityUSA
As I approach a civil unions vote in tomorrow's legislative session I was so encouraged as a Catholic legislator to find your site and read such intelligent discourse.
I have heard direct from the pulpit and in emails from my priests urging me to vote against the bill.
How many ways can our Church exclude loving people?
Thank you for your work.
Rep. Eileen Flockhart
Exeter, NH
We have continued working with our allies both in the progressive Catholic communities and in other LGBT spiritual and political groups over these last few years. As a result, we have seen greater willingness among progressive Catholic leaders to speak out on issues of importance to us, and increased understanding of the needs and contributions of GLBT Catholics in the greater movement for equality. I am very proud of the respect we have among our allies in both of these networks.
This weekend we are proudly releasing our updated Pastoral Care Guidelines for GLBT Catholics. Much of our media work is necessarily reactive so this type of proactive accomplishment is something we take great pride in. I hope you share that pride. The draft of our Guidelines was issued during last November’s US Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in response to the atrocious guidelines put out by our US Bishops without consultation with either GLBT Catholics or those the bishops themselves assign to minister to us. Because of years of persistent activity and cooperation with our Catholic Organization for Renewal (COR) allies this coalition put out its own impassioned plea for our bishops to not issue that statement. That month the DignityUSA Voice was heard in hundreds of newspaper articles with over a thousand Google hits, through dozens of interviews and several radio and television broadcasts. The high regard the media has for the honesty and integrity of the DignityUSA Voice allowed us to be heard speaking the truth of our lived experience to literally millions of people around the world. Such media exposure is priceless. If we don’t speak, who will? There simply is no other comparable Voice. It is truly GREAT !
Of course, over these last four years, we’ve experienced some challenges, as well.
Peggy and I came to you initially with the vision to Amplify the Voice with growing membership and to Empower the Voice with greater fundraising. Initially the membership grew from 1900 to well over 3000 -- with a big chunk of support from Catholic friends at Call to Action and from younger gay & lesbian activists at The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s (NGLTF’s) Creating Change conference, but we could not unlock the secret to persuade most of the new members to support us financially.
Today our membership is over 2400 but our donor base has continued to shrink as it has done for the past twenty-five years. Your Board of Directors continues to struggle to come up with a formula for raising the funds we need. Today we only have about 1000 donors and only 700 who donate more than $50 per year. The standard non-profit rule that 20% of donors contribute 80% of revenue is even more skewed for us. Far less than 20%, only 50 organizations and individuals, contribute 50% of our income; that’s 50 people out of 1000 donors or 50 people out of 2500 members. As much as we thank God for those 50 donors (and all our donors) this is quite shocking and is neither healthy nor sustainable for an organization that has as ambitious an agenda as DignityUSA’s.
Discerning what the answer is for our fundraising needs is very much a work in progress and undoubtedly new and creative ideas will come forward to answer that question. Perhaps you have the key? One cannot know for sure what external forces like the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI have done to our membership and donor levels. But we do know this has been a tough period for progressive Catholic organizations in general. Regardless, we need to live and plan for the future in the here and now.
There are two things you can do: Our monthly Guardian Angel donors take good advantage of our secure online credit card system and we need many more of our members – every one of you here today -- to join in and give us the $21 or $42 or $84 monthly donations that we need to sustain our existence. Don’t leave Austin without signing up! The second thing for you to do is to specifically mention DignityUSA in your will or life insurance as a living testament of the value of the work our very existence can be for future generations.
As some of you know, I recently dodged a bullet with the successful removal of a surface skin cancer melanoma. DignityUSA has dodged the bullet of dropping revenues. Today our expense budgets have been slashed extensively – by over 40 % -- to meet the revenue our members contribute. A tremendous amount of our work is done by volunteers, but realistically there is a need for paid staff. Except for a few large and largely non-repeatable donations, our membership over the past several years has not contributed enough revenue for us to fully pay for an Executive Director. Yet officers and other Board members, as part-time volunteers scattered across the country, cannot be expected to do all that needs to be done.
What is the answer? Today our Board meets in person three times a year and monthly by teleconference calls -- all of which cost this organization nothing because Board members now pay all of their own expenses. Potential Board members without sufficient personal resources need a chapter or others to sponsor them. All Board members have fundraising responsibilities. This past year, the Board has operated without an Executive Director and has moved our office to much less expensive space in Dignity/Washington’s Dignity Center. We have struggled to find the caliber of staff we need to operate, and the Board has recently decided to hire a new Office Manager. Beginning October 1, our very own Peggy Burns will begin running our office, operating out of her home town of Boston. We will maintain our headquarters in Washington, DC, but go to where the best talent is to staff our operations.
These decisions exemplify the work of our recent and incoming boards, which are wide open to new ideas and new solutions. We have been blessed with more and more people with the specific talents that a Board of Directors needs. Our Board operations have been vastly improved, guided now by Strategic Planning which was in its infancy for us just four years ago. We are always in need of volunteers to do the work of the Board and of our essential Board committees. Obviously our best source for volunteers may be right here in this room and with our other passionate supporters who hopefully will read these words in the coming days on our website
Many of you were involved in the Re-Imaging Dignity process that developed during the 1990’s and was finalized in 2001 with new Bylaws and the resulting structural changes. Part of our overall work of the past 4 years has been to facilitate the transition to what that restructuring process envisioned. A major part of that vision was a different type of Board of Directors that was to be a working, stewardship-focused, administrative, policy-making body that pulls diverse people in from around the country to expand the resources dedicated to running the organization. This is a huge cultural transformation that had to honor our first 30+ years of history and tradition but fundamentally change the way we think and do things. In many ways this has been done, even if usually done quietly and without a lot of fanfare. It really is the completion of the restructuring process launched in New Orleans in 1993 when I was just struggling to find my local Dignity chapter in St Louis and come out as a gay Catholic. Hopefully this is a legacy – the legacy -- that will be the absolutely critical under-pinning in moving our great Mission forward for years to come.
Within DignityUSA much has been tried and accomplished in the past four years; much remains to do. GLBT religious groups are becoming increasingly important to the success of our movement for full equality. There is a tremendous need for positive GLBT Catholic theology and pastoral practice based in the realities of our faith and experiences. There still needs to be a Voice that will speak truth to power, and speak when the powerful do not speak truth. We know how to do all of this. We, DignityUSA, can do all of this. With your help we can survive and thrive! Without your help, who knows what the future holds?
Whether responding to legislative issues such as same-sex marriage in many of the states where we have DignityUSA chapters or to the homophobic “truthiness” of the Vatican or to the election of a new pope or to a private e-mail from someone hurting or damaged, DignityUSA has been available to respond. Thanks for making that possible!
********
Let me close with these final remarks.
Hopefully this all is worthy of your continued prayers, involvement and support. I once again stand humbly before you in all my human frailty. There is no way Peggy and I could ever thank everyone for all they’ve done – all you’ve done -- for DignityUSA over the past four years. You are a passionate and loving people and it’s been a great privilege to serve DignityUSA as your officers.
Thank you for being here with us this weekend. Let’s go forth from here energized, using our time here in Austin as a family to listen, to pray, to play, and to work hard together. Then let’s take that energy home with us to our chapters or other faith communities, with renewed support for the national mission of DignityUSA. Give all the support you can to Mark, Lourdes, and the Board that will lead this organization for the next couple of years. And then let’s gather again, stronger, more vibrant and even more successful than ever, in San Francisco in 2009 for our 40th Anniversary!
God Bless all of you, all those you love and all of DignityUSA !
