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About MAP
The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) was founded in February 2006 by a group of committed, long-term donors to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) movement.
Housed as an independent operating unit of the Gill Foundation, MAP’s mission is to speed achievement of full social and political equality for LGBT people by providing donors and organizations with strategic information, insights and analyses to help them increase and align resources for highest impact.
The idea for MAP originated at the June 2005 OutGiving Conference in Aspen, Colorado. At that conference, donors responded enthusiastically to a plenary presentation of a diagnosis of the LGBT movement’s challenges and opportunities (sponsored as a one-time project by the Gill Foundation). The donors indicated in a workshop and via a survey that they would greatly value additional independent, strategic analysis of the movement. Nearly 80 percent of survey respondents (who at the time gave just 56 percent of their charitable dollars to the movement, on average) indicated that they would increase their giving to LGBT organizations if the impact of their funding were clearer.
MAP serves two constituencies with information and analysis:
- Major donors to the LGBT movement -- because an increase or change in their giving can have quick and substantial positive impact. They have extensive influence on organizations.
- Executive Directors, senior staff and board members of LGBT organizations -- because this is where the rubber meets the road. Their participation is needed for effective change.
Click here to see a logic model that shows why MAP and its funders believe that MAP’s activities will result in positive change in the LGBT movement as a whole.