More than a dozen years ago, a few women gathered at what is now Thousand Waves Spa to discuss the need for lesbian-specific cancer support groups and services.
For several years, Lesbian Community Cancer Project was primarily a volunteer-driven agency, with an active board and benefits attracting city and suburban women.
The agency grew large enough to rent offices in the Uptown Bank Building, their major Coming Out Against Cancer gala swelled to nearly 2,000 people at its peak, and the four staff maintained the day-to-day programming and social-service needs.
Now LCCP is facing a funding crunch, and two staff members have been let go—Lexi Ward and Julie Bolen. The LCCP board is in the middle of strategic planning which will address reducing overhead and better serving the needs of their clients.
LCCP's financial crisis mirrors that of many non-profits in the post Sept. 11, and post-Clinton, years. Federal funds, which were always tenuous, have been diverted, which means fewer trickle-down dollars for the lesbian community. Foundations and corporations have tightened their belts, and individual donations are also down.
Only Executive Director Jessica Halem and head of programs Mona Grimes remain, and the LCCP board and volunteers are helping pick up the slack. LCCP's board has quadrupled their donations to the agency, and they are currently outreaching to bring in new donors. But it has not been enough.
'Our goal is not to cut programs,' Halem said last week. 'This is what LCCP is about—the programs.'
LCCP sent an appeal letter to individual supporters this week, and they will continue to widen the circle of people they are reaching out to, in an effort to raise tens of thousands of dollars before their fiscal year ends June 30.
Halem emphasized that LCCP is serious about eliminating overhead—so that donors know this will not be a continual funding plea.
'We have had an incredible strategic planning process over past nine months,' Halem said. 'We need to raise money not just because of the short-term debt, but we need the funds to be able to transform the structure and the way we work.'
Halem said the board wants to transform the agency to become more of a training and educational force. By training current and future medical professionals to be more sensitive to lesbian issues, LCCP's reach will be far wider than if they just provided lesbian-sensitive care. While the support groups remain a critical part of LCCP's mission, the actual services will be transformed into the training of mainstream providers to be more in tune with the needs of lesbians—that includes medical students, doctors, nurses, and receptionists.
'Where we started 12 years ago was about sisters helping each other, because no one else was doing that. Now we have developed into advocacy work,' Halem said. 'We know there are tens of thousands of women, lesbians, who need good care. With this new model, we can reach more women.'
The current funding crisis is forcing LCCP to speed up those plans to transform.
Halem points out that although LCCP recently had just four staff, that still made it one of the larger lesbian organizations in the U.S., and the largest lesbian-specific agency in Chicago.
'We get lumped in with big agencies, but we have always been so tiny. So the layoffs have more impact,' Halem said, noting that professionals will still be the ones providing services—LCCP will not go back to the old model of volunteers providing services.
What will suffer? LCCP, despite being so small, was 'everywhere' doing outreach and activities, from events to street fairs. 'We have to reassess what we will be able to do in terms of outreach,' Halem said.
When Halem started with LCCP in July 2001, the agency had just received government funding through the tobacco settlements for anti-smoking efforts, and additional foundation, corporate and government support.
But with a Republican president, a weak economy, and then additional post-Sept. 11 economic hardship impacting LCCP funders and supporters, the agency joined thousands of other non-profits in having to face a dire funding picture.
'Lesbian health was already on the margins of funding. So when times get tough, it will hit the margins first. We had just been added, so it is not surprising we were the first to go. We were marginalized to begin with,' Halem said.
The solution of merging with another GLBT agency is not on the table. LCCP's founders and current staff and board seem adamant about the need for a lesbian-run agency serving lesbians.
'When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was so important for my partner and myself to have a place to go where we could be ourselves and be comfortable,' said Pam Babler, a cancer survivor and LCCP board member. 'At such a stressful and frightening time in our lives, we didn't need to worry about what other people thought of our relationship. LCCP gave us a place to find the support that we so needed in a friendly environment.'
Indeed, LCCP fills not just a health-related role for lesbians, but a social and educational one as well. They are in many ways the most visible face for the tens of thousands of lesbians—perhaps hundreds of thousands—in the Chicago region. In the media, in top-level community meetings, and through their highly visible community events, LCCP provides a unique voice for lesbians.
Keeping 'lesbian' in their name has also always been a critical choice for the agency—a choice that has hurt their ability to attract some foundation, government and individual donor support. But the empowerment and visibility that name gives in return is immeasurable in impact.
Now LCCP is reaching out to the community. They have helped thousands of women, some with cancer, some dealing with a friend or lover's cancer, some who needed prevention screenings, or some who just needed a first step out into the lesbian community.
They have helped others: 'Because lesbian health matters. Because lesbians matter.' Now they are asking for help in return.
See www.lccp.org or call (773) 561-4662.
