The Matthew Shepard Foundation is competing to receive one of five cash awards from the American Giving Awards, presented by Chase Bank. The foundation is the only LGBT organization in the second round of voting.
Each of the five charities will receive $125,000 for fourth and fifth place, $250,000 for third place, $500,000 for second place and $1,000,000 for first place, based on the public's votes on the American Giving Awards Facebook page or for those with Chase accounts. Voting will take place Dec. 1-8. Each person will be able to vote eight times, one vote per 24-hour period. The four charities that are competing against the foundation are To Write Love on Her Arms, Wish Upon a Hero Foundation, Let's Get Ready and Move for Hunger.
In the first round of voting the foundation won the "Youth Developers" category with their program "Replacing Hate with Understanding, Compassion and Acceptance." Twenty-five charities competed in the first round a number of weeks ago; they were divided into five categories based on certain themes. With its victory in the first round of voting, the foundation is hoping to win the top prize of a $1,000,000 grant to start an online learning program.
"We want to develop online learning programs for LGBT and allied youth to learn skills for dealing with bullying, harassment and bias that they encounter in their daily lives by creating a simulation decision-making exercise where you confront some typical situations of bullying or bias and see how different responses might play out, so they can feel more confident dealing with unexpected and difficult situations they may encounter, said Jason Marsden, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
He added, "Then you will get feedback about the way you responded and what that might lead to including suggestions for further resources you can look at and think about. The idea would be create a safe environment with some expertise and educational resources ... where they can try out different ways to respond to it in a safe way. This has been a dream of ours for a number of years that we have been refining, talking to experts but to write a software program it will take considerable financial resources to really pull it off."
This is not the foundation's only program. There is also a program called Erase Hate, where Judy Shepard (Matthew's mother), a staff member, a board member or several members of its growing speakers bureau do speaking engagements. The places they visit include middle and high schools as well as colleges, workplaces, community groups, non-governmental organizations, other nonprofits, local LGBT centers and community theaters who are putting on the Laramie Project. With the Laramie Project productions the foundation provides a specialist, resources and all-around information on how to put on an accurate performance.
Also on the horizon, the foundation is working on getting youth bloggers to participate on the Matthew's Place website which houses their youth resources. These bloggers will write about LGBT issues from different regions around the country. The foundation wants to get five to 10 young people blogging about their experiences.
The foundation has received support for the competition from many notable people, including Chelsea Handler, actress Judith Light and activist/reality-TV veteran Reichen Lehmkuhl. Many organizations have also agreed to help promote the voting, such as One Colorado, PFLAG, GLSEN, AFER, Campus Pride, True Colors, Give a Damn and even The Imperial Court of Halifax.
Results of the voting will be announced during the first-ever American Giving Awards on NBC, which Bob Costas will host in a two-hour prime-time special Saturday, Dec. 10, 7-9 p.m. CT at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.
To vote for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, visit www.votematthewshepard.org or log on to a Chase online account page. To find out more about the foundation, visit www.matthewshepard.org; to read the youth blogs, visit www.matthewsplace.com .
