If I want to give a modest donation to a MN organization working for marriage equality, what’s the most efficient use of my $?
I felt like I should have a good answer for this question, but I’m really not sure. I got as far as “it depends on which approach you support.” I might recommend OutFront Minnesota, Project 515, or Marry Me Minnesota. And if it came to the point where I were putting my actual dollars on the line, I’d probably give them to Project 515 but I confess to being slightly biased because a friend of mine is on the board of that organization.
I’m honestly not really sure what I’m most comfortable with.
As I was poking around the resources I know of trying to formulate an answer, a problem came to the fore. Here’s my beef, which I initially thought might be petty, but I’m finding it to be a huge problem because it’s a real barrier to my participation and information gathering (and ultimately, my information dissemination and recommendation).
I’m not quite clear on the relationship between Marry Me Minnesota and Marriage Equality Minnesota. I know that Doug Benson is behind them both and that’s all. This is not the beef. The beef is that I tried to contact Marriage Equality Minnesota through their website and couldn’t.
That website sucks and that is a huge problem.
- marriageequalitymn.org is seriously horrid to look at. Like, hurting my eyes, difficult. I literally could not stand to look at it long enough to track down informaton.
- I tried to submit a contact form asking for clarification and it would not take the submission unless I provided address/phone number/contact info I was not interested in providing because I don’t know enough about them to get on a mailing list.
- They’re doing quite a bit of organizing on facebook. Which is fine. I’m a facebook user. But I suspect some of the most useful information is on facebook. Not everyone is on facebook and if you’re not on facebook you can’t access any of that information. Especially consider the fact that older people are less likely to be on facebook and more likely to sign on to be litigants in the lawsuit.
Now, I know they probably have, like, no budget for a website and certainly no paid staff to maintain it. To which I say get a free wordpress.com account or Blogger account and set something up there. Or, even better, I’m sure there are plenty of queer folks in Minnesota who would donate time/money/hosting for a website.
If I can’t use your website, I’ll stop paying attention, despite the fact that this is an issue that I care very strongly about.
Moving on.
Doug Benson authored the Marriage and Family Protection Act which was introduced in the legislature earlier this year but never made it to the floor. He posted this in the Marry Me Minnesota facebook group.
…The local advocacy groups … are actually a rather small, handfull of paid staff people who decide, for whatever reason, to take a position on an issue. We are a small group of people too and we have a different view.
We believe that nearly forty years of bad legal precedent is long overdue to be challenged. Do we know what the exact outcome of the legal challenge will be? No…AND NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE, no matter how much they profess to be able to predict the future. If everyone waits for an absolute guarantee of success before they try to change things, NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE.
The Marriage and Family Protection Act is a bill I brought to legislators last session which will make same-gender marriage legal in Minnesota. The bill was introduced with the support of nineteen lawmakers and OVER THE OBJECTIONS OF OUTFRONT AND PROJECT 515. I am now fighting to have that bill re-introduced next session for a hearing and a vote.
This would be good information to post, say, on your website. Also, if you’re pushing a lawsuit, and the advocacy organizations which favor legislation object to your legislation, you might want to explain this discrepancy as well. For reals, WHICH IS IT?!?!
I don’t even know what to think anymore.
3 Comments
Wow, that web design IS scary. Maybe some design-savvy person who wants to donate and is short on cash could donate some time helping them to a redesign? There are so many nonprofits with awful websites.
Although their major work is not solely directed at legislation on marriage equality, I support Rainbow Families with my membership because of their work with our already existing families, from people considering having children to every variation of family you can imagine. The MN organization recently merged with the national Family Equality Council, but remains a strong local presence:
http://www.familyequality.org/rainbowfamilies/
http://www.familyequality.org/rainbowfamilies/about.html
I’ve spent some time with folks from Rainbow Families lately. Went to their fall fundraising gala and have been attending a discussion series on racism/white privilege. Great people doing great work.
I’m still at a loss as to what’s the “most efficient” use of donation dollars for the marriage equality cause. I’m wondering if the “most efficient” use of my dollars, period, is a different organization entirely (like Rainbow Families).