The nonprofit legal aid group Lambda Legal, which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, has raised $285 million at a time when attacks on the rights of gay, intersex and transgender people have again intensified
Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings announced the results on Thursday, saying the group exceeded its original fundraising goal by $105 million.
“I think this is a statement by the LGBTQ+ community that we will not go back,” said Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings in an interview.
The nonprofit has won court cases that ended bans on gay marriage in 2015 and that abolished laws that criminalized sex between gay adults in 2003. It launched the fundraising campaign quietly in 2022 in response to a wave of bills in state legislatures that targeted LGBTQ+ rights.
Some of those laws sought to limit the discussion of sexuality and gender in schools, remove books featuring LGBTQ+ characters from school libraries, ban public drag shows, prohibit students from using their preferred pronouns and limit access to gender-affirming care for trans youth.
This year, President Donald Trump’s administration has focused on transgender people. It has ordered trans people to leave the military, sought to remove fair housing protections for them and denied the existence of trans, nonbinary and intersex people through an executive order recognizing only two sexes.
Trump has tried to cut federal funding for any gender-affirming medical care for trans children.
Lambda Legal has brought multiple legal cases against the administration, including challenges to its ban on trans members in the military and on gender-affirming care for trans youth.
A major change in the level of giving
Lambda Legal is a large nonprofit, spending more than $20 million annually since 2021 and holding assets exceeding $54 million in 2023, according to its tax filing.
But the scale of this campaign significantly increases its resources.
Jennings said since its founding in 1973, Lambda Legal had received three gifts of over $1 million. In this campaign, 14 individuals, two foundations and one law firm gave at least $1 million, with several giving tens of millions, he said.
“It was really individuals in the community who stepped up and made this campaign happen,” he said. “It wasn’t corporations. It wasn’t law firms. It wasn’t foundations.”
Among the donors is billionaire author MacKenzie Scott, who gave the nonprofit gifts in 2020 and 2021. The largest gift, $25 million, came from the Kathryn G. Graham Trust. Graham served as an early board member for Lambda Legal.
Some $80 million of the raised funds will be spent in the next five years, with the remaining $205 million pledged by donors in their estates, often called planned gifts.
Lambda Legal will use the infusion of cash to hire more attorneys, set up a new mechanism to coordinate pro bono representation from major law firms and hold public trainings about the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
“We’re not going to win every battle,” Jennings said. “We’re not going to win every fight, but we’re going to fight every fight and we will keep fighting and we will be able to keep fighting because of this campaign until we eventually win.”
Even with this new fundraising push, Lambda Legal’s resources still fall short of the funding that has gone to conservative nonprofits that also use litigation to pursue public policy goals. For example, Alliance Defending Freedom has raised more than $100 million in each 2022 and 2023, according to its tax filings. The group has represented female athletes challenging sports participation by transgender women and girls and has challenged laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children.
A familiar threat but a different moment
The acceptance and visibility of gay, trans, intersex and gender queer people has transformed dramatically within the living memory of many Americans.
In 1961, Illinois became the first state to decriminalize homosexuality. The American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1972. But fights for equal treatment across social arenas and to protect against discrimination continued for decades.
Two major Supreme Court decisions in the past 25 years reflect a rapid shift in public attitudes to support the rights of LGBTQ+ people. The first in 2003 struck down sodomy laws that criminalized sex between gay adults and the second, in 2015, eliminated bans on gay marriage.
Marc Stein, a historian and professor at San Francisco State University, attributed those and other wins to the LGBTQ+ movements’ mobilization, court-based strategies and direct protests.
He also said over decades, the fundraising base of the movement changed significantly. In the 1950s and 60s, the movement largely was supported by its members.
“One main source was that they published magazines and newsletters and had subscribers and had members that paid membership fees,” Stein said, though some wealthy patrons also offered support. By the 1980s, the movement began pushing wealthy donors to give to LGBTQ+ causes, he said.
“I think there was a real change in that period from funding that kept the movement close to the community,” Stein said. “And then developments that led some, especially national organizations, to move away from the model of grassroots fundraising to a model of corporate and business fundraising.”
Now, numerous Pride events around the country — including San Francisco and New York City — are reporting budget shortfalls because corporate sponsors have withdrawn their support. Some experts say the corporate retreat from brand activism, which peaked between 2016 to 2022, is due to a changing cultural landscape and a growing number of consumers who don’t want companies to take positions on social issues.
Jennings of Lambda Legal noted the recent withdrawal of corporate money from supporting LGBTQ+ groups and credited his group’s recent fundraising success to its individual donors, many of whom he said were motivated to prevent a rollback on the rights that had been won in their lifetimes.
“We’re seeing a lot of cowardice on the part of corporate America right now. A lot of people, who two years ago couldn’t wait to slap a rainbow on their logo, are no longer writing checks,” Jennings said. “I think Lambda turned to the community and the community responded. And sadly, corporate America, which a lot of groups have relied on, has given up the fight in some cases.”
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