United Pride Is Out
United Pride is United Way of Metropolitan Chicago’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Ally (LGBTA) employee resource group (ERG). After a two year project of meeting, planning and asking for help from other ERGs, United Pride can officially call itself a leader in the non-profit community when it comes to LGBT employees. It was not an easy journey.
After a call to action in 2006 by our diversity committee, UWMC employees who identified as LGBTA pulled together to find a way to have a better connection with the LGBT community in Chicago. Several challenges presented themselves, not the least of which is UWMC’s relationship, or lack thereof, with our LGBT community. Loss of staff, everyday job pressure and leadership challenges prevented our outreach from continuing. Fast forward to 2008. . .
After attending the United Way Inclusion Roundtable held in San Francisco in July of 2008, I had an epiphany. UWMC did not have an issue speaking to, working with or being a part of the LGBT community. To some degree, UWMC has contact with the Chicago LGBT community through our partner agencies, Center on Halsted and Howard Brown. I feel like our current relationship with the LGBT community is best described as meeting someone at a cocktail party. You’ve said hello and promised to call because you know there’s opportunity to be explored – but you never did because you’d have to invite them to come to you and your house is a mess. I realized that UWMC needed to make sure our house was clean. A little Donna Reed, I know, but you get the picture. I brought my concerns and thoughts to other LGBTA employees, our director of diversity, as well as our board’s diversity committee and they were excited about the possibility of working together to support our LGBTA staff by creating an ERG.
United Pride has since been recognized by the diversity committee and the staff senior team. Not to start lightly, we have several irons in the fire. We are working with talent management to support the attraction, development and success of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees at all levels. We are working toward organizational transformation by Serving as mentors, role models, sponsors and colleagues who can provide valuable knowledge and information on LGBT issues. Finally, we are looking toward participating in LGBT community events as representatives of UWMC; translation: we hope to be a part of the Pride Parade in June 2010!
There are many people to thank that helped to get us to this point and if I neglect to mention you, it is purely in error, know that United Pride and myself appreciate all of the support you have given.
- Northern Trust – Sandra L. Zurawicz; Michael Valdez
- Deloitte – Thomas A. Dunn, Ph. D. ; Frank Buttitta
- PricewaterhouseCoopers – Patrick Le’Flore
- Ernst Young – Mark Fox
- JP Morgan – James Huberty
- Harris Bank – Patrick Sanchez
- American Airlines- Sam Santiago
- Texas Instruments – Andy Smith
- Polk Bros Foundation – Evette Cardona
- Woods Fund of Chicago – Consuella Brown
- United Way of Broward County
- Out & Equal
United Way World Wide:
- Marveen Henderson
- Jim Yu
Seth Vermilyea
I have worked with UWMC since 2005 in various positions. I am currently a project manager in our donor services department and a founder and co-chair of our LGBT employee resource group: United Pride. In my spare time I work with the Greater Chicago Ferret Association maintaining their Facebook group & cause as well as their webpage. (Yup, I said ferret.)
Great to see this work in Chicago! Congrats United Way! This timing is great with the approach the Employment Non-Discrimination Act hopefully in the near future. Let us know if Out & Equal can be any help,
Pat Baillie, Associate Director of Training
Bravo!!!! So happy for you!