My philanthropic journey began in 1968, when as a college junior I inherited a couple million dollars from my mother. After hesitant efforts to give some of it away, I was transformed by encounters in the 1970s with Haymarket People’s Fund and Gay Community News, both in Boston. I was able to come out of two closets: one was about my sexuality and the other my class privilege, and begin to incorporate the lessons I had learned in a larger vision of philanthropy that worked for social and economic justice (i.e., change).

I began to commit over half my income and significant chunks of capital; focusing about half of my funding within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender liberation movement. My largest single commitment was a $500,000 endowment to establish the OUT Fund at the Funding Exchange, covering all the operations for an activist-controlled fund to reach organizations I wouldn’t otherwise have known about.

Reflecting on my journey, the greatest gifts I have received in return have been the personal ones – the relationships with so many dedicated, spiritual, generous, funny, serious, inspirational women and men I have been blessed to meet along the way.