Judging HRC

A reader sent me Charity Navigator's assessment of the biggest gay rights group's tax-deductible foundation, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. They get one out of four stars overall. Their efficiency rating is zero out of four. What do these ratings mean? According to Charity Navigator, one star means:

"Fails to meet industry standards and performs well below most charities in its Cause."

Zero means:

"Performs far below industry standards and below nearly all charities in its Cause."

Of course, this does not even include the fact that their one explicit legislative goal for the last twenty years - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act - is still not the law, despite massive public support. In those two decades, the private sector has made more strides for gay equality than HRC, making ENDA close to irrelevant in much of corporate America. Yes: conservative corporations have beaten liberal HRC in advancing HRC's alleged primary goal. This despite the fact that HRC sucks over $20 million a year from the gay community, and its foundation is sitting on over $20 million in assets, according to the latest IRS-mandated reports, which HRC won't publish on its own site. And two decades ago, young gays were told that pushing for marriage rights was a bad thing because ENDA had to come first. We ignored them and battled their intense efforts to squelch marriage rights in the 1990s. Despite their efforts - marriage was off-brand for HRC because it was off-message for the Clintons - other pro-gay groups succeeded. HRC takes the credit, of course. That's one thing they're really good at.

If readers who are more adept at measuring the efficiency of various groups have more data defending or further subjecting HRC to criticism and scrutiny, I'll happily post it. If HRC cares to respond, I'll happily post their self-defense. Enjoy your teddy bears. And next time their hired telemarketers call, demand better.