Letter from the Executive Director

Friends,

I want to let all of you know about an exciting new development at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania (“EAP”). In the course of restructuring EAP, about which Board President Brian Sims has written to you before, EAP’s Board determined it was necessary to make some fundamental decisions and changes.

The first decision was to expand the Board into a truly state-wide and diversified Board, an ongoing process that has so far added members from Pittsburgh, Lackawanna County and Bloomsburg and anticipates doubling in size over the next three months. The second decision was to bring this organization into alignment with other states’ equality organizations that have as their missions education, advocacy, and policy reform to achieve state equality goals. That means focusing EAP on education and creating Equality Pennsylvania as the advocacy and legislative lobbying entity in Pennsylvania. That also means establishing offices in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg to do the state-wide work with field officers and lobbying efforts. Equality Pennsylvania has been formed and an announcement about new offices will be made shortly.

The third decision and the reason for this letter is that EAP’s Board decided it is time for the direct legal services that EAP has delivered to the LGBT population to be housed at and delivered by a another organization. After much exploration, it became clear that Mazzoni Center, which serves the health needs of the LGBT population, is the logical place to offer legal services to the population it already serves. Mazzoni Center has agreed to expand its services and mission to include a Legal Services Department, utilizing the same personnel as now utilized by EAP, thereby ensuring the continuous availability to the LGBT community of the highest quality legal services that has always characterized EAP’s Legal Services Department. Legal service needs outside of the greater Philadelphia area will be handled by the Mazzoni Center in the same manner as EAP did, mostly by utilizing its referral base of cooperating attorneys.

Both organizations will work toward a smooth transition over the next several months.

In speaking with local foundations and funders and national funding sources, I have been heartened by their favorable reception of the decision to relocate legal services delivery as well as the other organizational changes being made here.

Naturally, expansion and contraction of organizations present both challenges and opportunities. It is an exciting time to be immersed in equality work in Pennsylvania and I am honored to be entrusted with operating the preeminent Pennsylvania equality organization as we move into its next phase. We need your moral, financial and volunteer support as never before and be assured that we will be contacting you for all three in the near future.


Sincerely yours,

Lynn G. Zeitlin, Esq.

Executive Director
Equality Advocates Pennsylvania