Earlier this year, Windy City Times ( WCT ) reached out to many of Chicago's LGBT and AIDS nonprofit organizations in order to compile financial information and demographics of staff, board and clients.
The recent leak of the Pipeline Project's internal report on the Human Rights Campaign ( HRC )—which found the organization's corporate culture to be exclusionary in terms of gender, orientation, race and age, with an incredibly problematic emphasis on transgender workers not feeling safe enough to come out and being constantly misgendered—makes WCT's request for this information all the more relevant. Issues of diversity continue to plague both local and national LGBT groups, as does public concern around high salaries of nonprofit executive boards.
The survey asked for incorporation year, mission, income, expenses, budget breakdown, salaries and demographics of staff, board and clients.
The following organizations participated to varying degrees: About Face Theatre, Affinity Community Services, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, Center on Halsted, Chicago House, Equality Illinois, Gerber/Hart Library & Archives, Howard Brown, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, Lambda Legal, The Legacy Project, South Side Help Center, and Test Positive Aware Network ( TPAN ).
The raw data in the following charts was provided by the organizations in question and is believed to be the most current year available ( 2014 ). Of the organizations that did not fill out the WCT survey/opted out, WCT attempted to pull the IRS form 990 from GuideStar.org, which contains similar information to the survey and is a requirement for nonprofits to file annually and share publicly.
Heartland Alliance chose not to participate. WCT sent requests but did not receive responses from Alexian Brothers Housing and Health, Association of Latino Men for Action ( ALMA ), Chicago Black Men's Gay Caucus and The Civil Rights Agenda ( TCRA ). Those last three organizations have limited budgets.
Chicago House only supplied demographic data; all financial data was through IRS form 990. There is incomplete data from Center on Halsted in terms of demographic information. Equality Illinois does not require board members to self-identify by race, nor clients for gender or race. Gerber/Hart, Lambda Legal and The Legacy Project do not track the race or gender of clients. Affinity does not have clients.
Additional disclaimers:
—We asked that salaries include benefits in the total. They have been included in a graph with the organization's revenue to illustrate the percentage of said revenue. Not all organizations provided top five salaries in addition to that of the executive director role. Equality Illinois said their PAC had no salaries.
— The revenue data categories vary in terms of how they are labeled and grouped together.
—Some of the graph percentages for race exceed 100% due to individuals who fall into the category of more than one race, self-identify as many and/or were able to choose both race and ethnicity.
—Participants did not report countries of origin for race so, rather than incorrectly grouping individuals—and in recognizing that it doesn't have to be exclusively "or" and understanding that there is a difference—the data is labeled as "Hispanic or Latinx," a word used to cover Latino and Latina.
—Most importantly, since the organizations vary in terms of size and scope, the graphs should be taken at face value vs. compared to other organizations in a different standing, with a different audience, budget, fiscal cycle, and purpose.
For five pages of charts in readable form, follow this link: www.windycitymediagroup.com/pdf/WCT-Org-Survey.pdf .
