Oklahomans for equality

Equality Partners

With your generous support over a seven-year capital campaign, our dream has become a reality. Downtown Tulsa is now home to one of the nation’s largest community centers for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and allied community. Since Oklahomans for Equality (OkEq) purchased the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in October 2005, the agency’s financial needs and responsibilities have changed dramatically. Founded in 1980, the organization was entirely volunteer-run until 2003. Now stewards of an 18,000 square-foot facility, we have the capability to provide significantly enhanced programs and services. But doing so takes vision. It takes skilled staff and well-trained volunteers. And it takes a sustained financial commitment from our donors.

The newly formed Equality Partners will be critical to our reaching our ultimate goal: becoming one of the finest LGBT centers in the United States. Each month, OkEq is flooded with clients who need help, sometimes in life-or-death situations. Each month, generous people offer to provide low-cost workshops, social support services, fitness classes, educational programming, and more. Each month, our dedicated and hard-working staff go beyond the call of duty (and far beyond a 40-hour workweek) in meeting the demands required in operating the Equality Center six days a week, providing valuable programming, enabling the community to utilize our facilities, informing Oklahomans about LGBT issues, and ensuring that LGBT and allied people have an organized, professional voice in all matters of public life.

Depending on the season, it takes $20,000 to $30,000 a month for OkEq to operate the Equality Center, sponsor Tulsa’s annual Diversity Celebration, and serve approximately 10,000 visitors and 3,000 callers per year. Meeting these financial responsibilities is particularly challenging in the difficult political climate of Oklahoma. Where many LGBT organizations and community centers can easily obtain generous public and corporate funding, that is generally not the case in the Sooner State. This reality makes it all the more important for our programs and the Equality Center to be leading the charge for LGBT inclusion throughout our state and community.

Accordingly, we very much need committed individual donors like you to become OkEq Equality Partners. Equality Partners make tax-deductible financial contributions yearly or monthly. They make an investment in the future of LGBT Oklahoma part of their personal budget. They provide a critical pipeline of funding that enables OkEq to be a vital resource for thousands of people.

Please join us by making your monthly pledge or being a matching donor for dozens of other Equality Partners. Every cent takes us closer to the day when every LGBT American lives in a nation where he or she is affirmed, protected, and able to reach his or her fullest potential. How much is LGBT equality worth to you?
  • For $15 a month, you underwrite the cost of running our Gender Outreach Group, a support network for our transgender brothers and sisters.
  • For $25 a month, you enable us to operate one of the nine computers in the David Bohnett CyberCenter, a critical resource for our most frequent — and most vulnerable — center users, homeless LGBT youth.
  • For $50 a month, you sustain a constant stream of community events, the Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library, our Faith in Crisis discussion group, and videophone access for the deaf.
  • For $100 a month, you support our staff in invaluable activities such as program development, voter registration, educational outreach, volunteer management, and interfaith collaboration. Their work makes OkEq a visible and significant presence in a spectrum of LGBT and non-LGBT events statewide.
  • For $250 a month, you underwrite two months of cooling or heating our beautiful building or a year’s worth of receptions for our monthly and hugely popular Art Gallery shows.
  • As a matching donor, you maximize the impact of every donor’s gift, and you join a select circle of benefactors who are instrumental to every day of OkEq’s success.
An investment in equality is one you’ll never regret. Please join us in making Oklahoma a safe, welcoming place for all of its LGBT citizens and their supporters. We need you. We appreciate you. We are honored to serve you.


Become an Equality Partner now:

You can mail your gift to:
Oklahomans for Equality
PO Box 2687
Tulsa, OK 74101