OP/ED
Paying Our Pipers
Time for "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" to Go
Civil Unions and the
Destruction of Society
Editorial
Paying Our Pipers
Last month we honored some of the volunteers in our community at the R.U.1.2? Community Center dinner. This was recognition long overdue and entirely appropriate. Voluntarism has been the backbone of Vermont’s GLBT community and the force behind our accomplishments for years.
Our community’s opponents like to speak about the “well-funded gay lobby,” but nothing could be further from the truth here. Aside from the handful of organizations lucky enough to be able to woefully underpay small and overworked staffs, we have achieved what we have with the sweat and dedication of volunteers. (In the interest of full disclosure, Mountain Pride Media is one of those organizations able to offer something to several staff members, myself included.)
The quality of our lives here is largely protected by people who spend at least 40 hours a week doing something else to finance the hours they give to worthy organizations that help our youth, serve our ill, and enlighten our legislators and neighbors.
The growing number and ever more diverse array of GLBT community-based organizations will continue to depend on a finite number of volunteers. The task of supporting and managing these volunteers is, in itself, monumental.
But we must stop thinking that grassroots effort must equal unpaid labor and only unpaid labor. And we must stop thinking that the pool of volunteers is bottomless.
We are fortunate to have come this far without being required to pay living wages to the people doing the work.
As the specialization of our organizations develops and the sheer number of organizations increases, there are more demands on time and on the volunteer pool, stretching our resources thin and increasing the chance of volunteer burnout.
As organizations get more specialized, they require higher levels of skill. A good heart can take you a great deal of the way in almost any cause, but at a certain point, more skill, more knowledge, more professionalism often becomes necessary.
As organizations grow and improve, pushing their standards to a new level, expectations become higher. Breaks in service or other discontinuities because of volunteer turnover can be anything from an inconvenience to a disaster.
Paying people increases accountability and raises the standard. It offers an organization and the community it serves a certain measure of security in that a key volunteer won’t be forced to leave or reduce involvement with an organization because it doesn’t pay the rent.
We must maintain a presence in the Statehouse all the time, not just when the issue is particularly controversial or exciting. In all likelihood, this means paying someone. Keith Goslant and Virginia Renfrew have given countless hours to our community in their roles as co-liaisons for the Vermont Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights. But how long can any one of us afford to spend all day, every day, five months a year hanging out and networking without earning a living off the pursuit?
If you think for a moment that the civil union bill would have come to pass without paid lobbyists, you’re sadly mistaken. Fortunately, the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force was able to scrape together the money to foot that bill, but where do we go next? Wouldn’t it be wonderful for the VCLGR to have the finances to provide a full-time lobbyist for our community?
In the past few months OITM has received numerous letters concerning the social responsibility of livable wage legislation. Well, when we’re talking about social responsibility, our community is as worthy of living wages as anyone else – and how wonderful to be able to combine a living wage with socially responsible work!
As a community, we’re extraordinary at the Amish barn raising part of the process. We come together in an emergency or in the excitement and rush of a new project. Then we find ourselves with a great barn and struggling to figure out how to keep the cows milked.
Of course, much of this is easier said than done. No Vermont GLBT organization that I’m aware of has a Swiss bank account with more zeroes before the decimal point than after it. But we have a couple of wonderful opportunities ahead of us that we absolutely must capitalize upon intelligently.
The Gill Foundation workshops hosted by the Samara Foundation are step number one. A wealth of experience and information is being delivered to our doorstep. We must tap into it. We can learn from these professionals how to take our very good things and make them better, and more importantly, sustainable by augmenting our volunteer resources.
Within the next two years, our community will also benefit from an influx of $300,000, thanks to the Funding Partnership challenge grant garnered by Samara and the Vermont Community Foundation. The temptation to think of more new and exciting projects to start with these funds is great, and rightfully so, but we must make certain that the organizations we have now and the programs that are already working are stabilized and secured as we pursue the newer dreams.
Paying people who provide the elbow grease in our community is not caving in. It won’t cause Vermont to lose its grassroots charm or take the people’s voices away. Rather, it will enable those amongst us who are very good at what they do to keep doing it. We all benefit from that.
And while we’re at it…
Kudos to Attorney General William Sorrell, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiff in the discrimination case before the United States Supreme Court against the Boy Scouts of America.