The Fund was launched in 1982 to develop campaigns and technologies to engage Americans in public interest advocacy efforts. Through our fundraising and non-fundraising canvasses, we've gathered over 20 million petition signatures over the past 30 years and raised over $20 million for our partner organizations in the last year alone. The Fund's LA campaign office is currently running a campaign f
or the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, le***an, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against GLBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all. The Fund and Human Rights Campaign have worked on a canvass program together for more than a decade, growing the program’s size and impact every year of the partnership. The canvass helps expand HRC’s grassroots presence. Each year, we sign up new HRC members in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. The Fund and HRC work together on an annual effort to canvass at Pride Festivals. In the summer of 2007, we canvassed at 50 pride events and signed up over 1,000 new monthly donors for HRC at these events. The Fund’s partnership with HRC began with Fund staff raising money and visibility for HRC at pride events. Soon after, we added a national door-to-door canvassing program. This program has significantly expanded HRC's political and fundraising base. Since the partnership began, the number of HRC members and supporters has grown from 150,000 to 750,000. We've been able to sign up members in places like Pennsylvania and Tennessee, right in the backyard of political opponents like Rick Sa****um and Bill Frist. More recently, we've added a street canvassing program focused on signing up sustainers in high-traffic public places in urban areas like New York and Miami. Our street canvassing program has increased visibility in critical power bases for HRC and added thousands of valuable monthly donors to HRC’s membership file. The HRC-Fund canvasses are currently working to build support for a ban on employment discrimination.
