Path of the rainbow

Part one of a two-part series.

It’s
April 9, and there’s an uncustomary rumbling at the Atlantic-University
neighborhood’s less up-and-coming eastern edge.

            Two-dozen men and women are making
some commotion.

            But their cheers and jeers,
punctuated by the heavy beat from a dance studio across the way, are not at all
disturbing.

            Which is more than you can say about
some of the allegations they’re repeating for the media who’ve shown up —
alerted that an “angry mob” is outside the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley.

            The occasion is an Alliance board
meeting, usually no news hook.

            But there are some big stories
breaking. And they fall on both sides of the ledger: the Gay Alliance’s hopes
and plans for a bright future, and some internal strife that could overshadow
those hopes and plans.

The situation
revolves around the Alliance’s new executive director, Chuck Bowen, a
former South Carolinian with varied work experience.

            Bowen was most recently the CEO of
America’s Best Security, a Columbia-based firm run by “law enforcement
veterans” and others. Before that, he was with the South Carolina Association
for the Handicapped and Disabled. In the mid-1980s, he was executive director
of the South Carolina Dental Association.

            He’s been on the job here less than
three weeks. But already he’s shaken things up.

            On one side of the ledger, he and
the Alliance Board have promised “bold” initiatives, including the creation of
new staff positions, fundraising strategies, and outreach programs. An April 14
news release speaks of “a major shift in the Alliance’s resources” designed to
“take it [the group] in a new direction as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.”

            The initiatives will include a new
“Inclusive Culture Project” to teach “tolerance and respect in the workplace.”
A nationally known diversity trainer, Donna Red Wing, formerly of the Human
Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, will come
here to develop the project. There’ll also be new outreach programs aimed at
complementing groups like MOCHA (Men of Color Health Awareness Project). And
the Alliance’s monthly paper, The Empty
Closet, will “get a new look” and appear in an online interactive version,
as well. To bolster all these efforts — and to compensate for cuts in public
funding — the Alliance will get even more serious about fundraising.

            Bowen’s first major act was not
connected with these initiatives, at least not directly. And here’s where the
trouble started: Soon after taking the reins, he fired the Alliance’s longtime
program director, Tanya Smolinsky. Make that “eliminated the position,” as he
and the board would have it.

            The firing or elimination energized
some Alliance members. In fact, they got hopping mad, not only about the firing
— most, if not all of them were the former program director’s unabashed
partisans — but also because of real or perceived organizational problems that
had festered for months.

            Hence the April 9 protest outside
the Alliance headquarters.

            Lucinda Koessler was one of the
protesters that night. A former Alliance board member (she resigned last
November), Koessler has some overarching complaints. In a statement prepared
for the protest, she reacts to the board’s style: “I believed and felt that the
leadership and direction of the board was inconsistent with the mission of the
organization and was as oppressive as the homophobia and heterosexism that the
[Alliance] is trying to fight.”

            Koessler complains, too, about what
she says are structural problems. The Alliance, she says, has hired four
executive directors over the last three years, yet still has struggled
financially. She plugs the person who was just fired, too: “In 1999, the program
director secured a $95,000 grant from the New York State Department of Health
that allowed the [Alliance] to hire its first executive director, its first
youth coordinator, and its first administrative assistant.”

            Chris Carol, who resigned from the
board this past January, echoes some of Koessler’s thoughts. Serious internal
strife “has been going on since last year,” Carol says. But protester Michael
Avery is more direct. In a prepared statement to the board, he addresses
Bowen’s job history. Specifically, Avery charges that Bowen didn’t really carry
out the duties of an executive director with the South Carolina Association for
the Handicapped and Disabled. Rather, says Avery, Bowen was the manager of a
bingo hall and actually ran no service programs.

Say what? Did Bowen
inflate his résumé? Well, within limits, résumé-inflation has become a common,
even accepted practice.

            Nonetheless, a little research digs
up facts that may raise a flag or two here. And several Gay Alliance members
have been publicizing these facts, easily obtainable from publicly accessible
databases.

            For example, look at recent IRS Form
990s filed by the South Carolina Association for the Handicapped and Disabled.
(Not-for-profits are required to file these forms annually to detail their
budgets and characterize their work.) The 990s establish that the Association
is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization based in Columbia, South Carolina.
But a phone number and staff names on one 990 indicate the association is
connected to — identical with? — an operation called Five and Dime Bingo, also
of Columbia. Bowen is named as a “former manager” on the Association’s 990 for
2001. His name doesn’t appear on the 990s the Association filed from 1997
through 2000. (The 990 form asks for the names of directors, officers, and “key
employees,” paid or unpaid.)

            There are questions about
priorities, too. In 2000, Bowen’s last full year with the Association, the
group’s 990 declares more than $1.3 million in total revenue. The form also
states that the Association’s “primary exempt purpose” (the program area that
qualifies the group for not-for-profit, tax-exempt status) is to “operate bingo
games to provide cash contributions to charities, primarily AIDS foundations.”

            But according to the 990 for that
year, the total given to charity in 2000 was $4,290, less than one-third of one
percent of total revenue. The pattern holds for other recent filings. By
contrast, wages and salaries that year totaled almost $300,000, while $800,000
was paid in bingo prizes. Bowen’s compensation wasn’t given; the 990 for 2001,
though, says he and another “former manager” each received compensation of just
under $56,000 for half-time work. (The 990 for 2001 was not prepared on Bowen’s
watch; he says he left the Association halfway through the year.)

            The Association’s tax filings have
caught the eye of regulators, too. Ned Badgett, assistant director of the
Public Charities division of the South Carolina Secretary of State’s office,
says he’s looked at the recent 990s. The form for 2001 “is all messed up,” he
says — so much so, he adds, that it’s been sent back to the group for
correction and re-filing.

            Badgett emphasizes he’s making no
judgment about wrongdoing, illegality, or impropriety. The errors on any or all
of the 990s might be simply a matter of putting the right information on the
wrong line. “They have inadvertently called bingo a program instead of a
fundraising event,” he says, citing one example.

What does
Bowen say about all this — and about the effort to, well, impeach him?

            The South Carolina Association for
the Handicapped and Disabled, he says, is a “certified not-for-profit” whose
books were “kept by a well-known CPA.” Bowen says he was indeed the
Association’s executive director, not a bingo-hall manager. Besides, he says,
in South Carolina bingo halls “are where groups raise a lot of their money.”
The halls, he adds, “are very heavily regulated by the state.”

            But back to the Association and its
tax filings. What about the small percentage of revenue shown as actual
donations to actual charities?

            “We actually had programs that we
ran that didn’t actually [give] money out,” Bowen says. “We did food banks to
help people,” he says. He recalls special bingo events for kids or seniors, and
a “Sisters in the Name of Love” program that helped people who were dying of
AIDS. These and other programs weren’t itemized on the 990s, he says.

            He analyzes the current fracas as a
power struggle. “This whole thing,” he says, concerns “a disgruntled
ex-employee who’s trying to validate herself by impugning the board. I’m deeply
disappointed by the actions of these individuals… None of this started till I
let [the program director] go.”

            Bowen says the Alliance board and
staff and he “are spending our entire day fending off demands” from the former
program director and her allies. “This group is out to destroy this agency, and
I hope you’ll quote me on that,” he says.

            We sought board members’ comments on
all these matters; only board vice president Tom Carlock responded. He explained
that, in line with a board decision, all questions would have to be directed to
Bowen. But the board’s official statements have sounded conciliatory. For
example, a recent news release speaks almost regretfully about “the recent
decision… to eliminate the position of program director within the Alliance,
which had been held by a very popular, respected member of the community.”

            Likewise, the news release
acknowledges that the April 9 protesters “spoke from the heart with love and
concern for the [gay and lesbian] community…”

            For their part, the protesters have
formed an unincorporated group called the “Alliance for Accountability.” The
group held an initial meeting April 13, and activists have created a Yahoo!
discussion group for sharing information.

            “Our purpose,” says the discussion
group’s self-description, “is to gather facts necessary to determine if the
leadership is acting in the best interests of the membership of the GAGV, and
if not, to hold them accountable… This is about seeking the truth and making it
available to our community members and leaders… It is not about retaliation. It
is not about personalities.”

As the
questions cycle and re-cycle, Chuck Bowen and the Alliance board
are plowing ahead with what they call “bold” organizational initiatives. And to
judge by a recent Alliance official statement, the board is backing Bowen all
the way.

            Right now, says Bowen, the Alliance
is working on “a comprehensive development plan,” including “the possibility of
an endowment-type fund… anything that we can do to get away from dependence on
taxpayer dollars.”

            Why does the Alliance get public
funding? The group is well-known and respected for following its motto:
“Educate, Advocate, and Celebrate.” But the Alliance has also become a key
service-provider to the gay community and individuals and families connected to
it.

            The Alliance runs things like the
“GaySource” phone information line, which takes more than 1,000 calls per year
and makes referrals to “gay-friendly lawyers, doctors, therapists, businesses,
and churches.” There’s also a state-funded “Teen Advocacy and Support Services”
program that connects young people with crisis-intervention counseling and
other supports — all crucial in fighting gay-teen suicide, substance abuse, and
other ills.

            But the Alliance’s state funding has
been drying up. Two years ago, says Bowen, state funds made up 60 percent of
the group’s budget. Today, the figure is 35 to 40 percent. And as with many
not-for-profits, the next state budget may contain deep cuts that will drag the
figure down further.

            “We do have some reserves,” says
Bowen. But the Alliance will still have to scramble. “We’re trying to raise
money through a coordinated development campaign.” This effort, he says, will
allow the hiring of a “youth outreach coordinator” who’ll work with entities
like the many “gay-straight alliances” springing up in high schools.

            The Alliance staff already includes
a “youth program coordinator,” Patty Hayes. According to a recent article in The Empty Closet, Hayes worked with
local students on another April 9 event: a Day Of Silence. This national event
was designed “to protest the discrimination, harassment, and abuse, in effect
the silencing, faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people and
their allies.”

            Bowen says a new director of
community development will replace the program director’s position. And the
Alliance board, he says, has approved the hiring of a Communications Director,
as well.

            The Alliance is also banking on
diversity trainer Donna Red Wing. The 1999 winner of the Walter Cronkite Award
for Faith and Freedom, Red Wing will develop a program here that Alliance
leaders hope will “become a nationally recognized model.”

            Then there’s bricks-and-mortar — and
a possible move.

            The Alliance has for some years
owned its headquarters at 179 Atlantic Avenue, practically around the corner
from “ArtWalk” and other attractions. But the solid-looking two-story structure
may not suffice for long. “We’ve far outgrown this building,” says Bowen. “It’s
all ours, free and clear,” he says. But the building, he says, has a leaky
roof, too little meeting and office space, and no air-conditioning.

While
acknowledging that “protests and marches are important,” Bowen believes a new
angle must be found.

            “Our activism here is outdated,” he
says. “We’ve been ‘queer-centric.'” But now, he says, the Alliance needs to
focus on things in the wider world, such as gay rights in the workplace. He
mentions plans for an Inclusive Culture Coordinator, who’ll help employees in
small businesses become “tolerant and respectful” of gay co-workers.

            As Bowen and others explain, this
kind of program flows from the recent passage of the state Sexual Orientation
Non-Discrimination Act — widely known as “SONDA” — which at long last granted
full civil rights to gay people. (See Chris Busby’s report in City Newspaper, December 11, 2002.)
Crowning three decades of attempts to pass such a law, SONDA has demonstrated
the power of statewide and local organizing.

            But this success also leaves a
couple of political questions hanging: “Where do we go from here?” and “What
organizations will take us there?”

            The Gay Alliance’s new directions
obviously are part of the answer. But the group’s prospects, especially in the
near term, hinge on the current internal strife and organizational responses to
it.

            For the present, though, the
Alliance board has sought to calm the waters by sticking to business. The
group’s April 14 news release, for example, said little about personnel changes
at the Alliance and nothing about challenges to Bowen’s résumé. Yes, it listed
some truly bold initiatives. But it also cautioned that “no new steps [can] be
taken until new sources of revenue are established.”

            The fact is, the Gay Alliance is so
well established, maybe even “establishment,” that money will make or break it.
For good or ill, the modern rainbow — that is, the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgendered movement as it stands — is dependent on that proverbial pot of
gold.

Next week:
What trajectory will the rainbow take? A look at the movement.

This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2003.