The Centers Journey Forward – The Center Orlando

The Center's Journey Forward:

A Campaign for
Growth and Impact

The mission of LGBT+ Center Orlando, Inc. is to promote and empower the LGBT+ community and its allies through advocacy, education, information, and support.

“We are a safe space. We serve everyone. What we do saves lives.”

—Dr. George A. Wallace, CEO

Since 1978, The Center has provided the services Central Florida’s LGBT+ community needs.

What began as a safe space to gather has become the only community center in Central Florida offering comprehensive HIV services, mental health counseling, victim service case management, peer-led addiction recovery, support groups, a food pantry, and housing stability case management. We take pride in being:

ROOTED

Founded in 1978 and serving our community for forty-five years, we will be here for decades to come.

INCLUSIVE

The Center serves everyone—youth, seniors, people of all sexual orientations and people who identify across the gender spectrum, along with their allies.

COMPREHENSIVE

From testing to career planning, we provide a wide range of effective services.

NIMBLE

As our community’s needs have changed, so have we. From the food pantry we opened during the pandemic to the addition of Orlando United Resiliency Services (OURS) in 2021 to provide specialized care and services for those impacted by trauma, we believe that seeing a need means stepping up to fill it.

2022 IN REVIEW

“From counseling to the food pantry, HIV/STI testing, mobile services, support groups, and programs like OWL, designed specifically to serve Central Florida’s LGBT+ 55 and older community, The Center’s impact is mighty.” —Jerry Warner, board of directors

Becoming The Center Our Community Needs

The Center’s origin story and evolution are unlike those of other community centers. You might say we are in—and have always been in—a constant state of becoming.

Becoming The Center Our Community Needs

Every step along the way, we were becoming the organization we are now, just as we are in the process of becoming the organization our community needs tomorrow.

“The Center is and has been a champion for inclusivity—for everyone in the community.
That’s integral to building a better world.” —Jimmy Drew, board of directors

Despite our successes, we must do more. The need for programs and services that promote, empower, and support our LGBT+ community has never been more urgent.

Over 1,000 people move to the Orlando area every week, one in 20 of whom identify as LGBT+, and we are still operating out of the headquarters we purchased in 1999.
The demand for mental health counseling has increased. Waitlists for counseling are two to three months long.
Food insecurity is rocking our community. The Pride Pantry, which served 70 individuals and families a month when it opened, now serves over 300 individuals and families per month.
Traffic and transportation are increasingly keeping people from accessing our services. Increasing our Mobile Outreach program is a priority so we can meet people in rural areas as well as increase services to those most marginalized.
The trans community is under attack. Central Florida’s transgender and gender non-conforming population are in need of additional affirming services now more than ever.

We have the heart, we have the people, and we have the know-how to step up to the plate and become more of a solution to the challenges facing our community.

We are proud to launch The Center’s Journey Forward. Through this capital campaign, you can partner with us to make strategic investments in our headquarters, our programs, and our foundation so that The Center can serve more people and serve them better today, tomorrow, and long into the future.

“The services provided by The Center are more critical today than they have been at any point in time since the AIDS crisis.” —Mark Cady-Archilla, former board of directors

Priority: Reconfiguring our Mills Avenue Headquarters

Priority: Reconfiguring our Mill Street Headquarters

Bricks and mortar matter. The configuration of our headquarters impacts our ability to effectively provide programs and services. Staying in our 942/946 Mills Avenue headquarters is the most fiscally responsible path forward. Through this campaign, we will reconfigure our footprint so that we can serve more people and serve them as equitably, efficiently, and sustainably as we should. As a result of this renovation, we will be able to:

Improve accessibility so that our front entrance and program spaces are ADA compliant and so that every client that comes to us feels seen, welcomed, and respected.
Increase the size of our food pantry, currently located in a 16×30 storage room, to alleviate food insecurity experienced by our LGBT+ community by purchasing rolling racks and increase product availability.
Reunite staff that are currently scattered across both our campuses so that they can coordinate programs and client care efficiently and effectively.

Life-Saving Services and Life-Affirming Visibility

“The Center saved my life not once, but twice.”
– John

“The Center saved my life not once, but twice,” says John*, a lifelong activist and corporate fundraising professional in Orlando. “The first time was when I was a recovering addict. The Center was a safe place where I could go to meetings and get help,” he explains. The second time John was serving on The Center Board of Directors. He wanted to show the rest of the board just how quick and easy The Center made it get an HIV test. “And I popped positive,” says John. “Had The Center not been there, there is a strong possibility I would be dead.”

Fast forward to today. John’s been undetectable for twelve and a half years. He’s been married for over a decade. He’s the father to two stepchildren. He owns a successful firm in the philanthropic sector. He continues to serve as an activist for Orlando’s LGBT+ community. And he is excited about the opportunities The Center’s Journey Forward will make possible for The Center—not just from the standpoint of expanding and improving key services. “The visibility The Center provides to the LGBT+ community and our allies in today’s climate is just as critical,” says John.

“This is an opportunity to let people know that we see them and that they matter. This campaign will ensure our growing community, including their families, knows where to go when they need a safe space and a trusted source of information, and it will ensure The Center can get them the counseling, information, and services they need.” *For the sake of privacy, our client’s name has been changed.

Priority: Expanding the Programs Our Community Needs Most

Mental Health Counseling

Today, we provide mental health counseling through a network of part-time service providers, all of whom are located off site. While the quality of care we provide is unmatched, demand far exceeds our capacity. Clients face a two- to three-month wait before they can meet with a counselor.

Through The Center’s Journey Forward, we will revamp our mental health counseling program to increase our capacity, serve clients more quickly, and streamline our mental health services by:

Renovating a portion of our headquarters to become our Counseling Center. Designed to meet best practices for trauma-informed care, this space will provide clients seeking in-person counseling with a safe space to meet with counselors during our regular business hours.
Hiring a full-time Director of Clinical Services who can meet with clients five days a week in the Counseling Center and strengthen the ways we integrate mental health services into our continuum of care.
Increasing opportunities for student internships.

With your gift, you will ensure we provide more of our clients with the mental health counseling services they need when they need it most.

Outreach Services

Since launching our Mobile Outreach services in 2014, we have begun closing the gap between the number of people who need our services and the number we are actually able to serve. Last year alone, our mobile services team conducted 850 HIV and Hep C tests and provided hundreds of people with clothing, hygiene, and food to meet their immediate needs. Through The Center’s Journey Forward campaign, we will expand mobile services, including:

Paying off our new state-of-the-art mobile testing unit, leaving the program debt free.
Increasing our capacity to participate in community and partner events throughout Central Florida.

With your gift, you will ensure more people have access to our life-saving and life-affirming services regardless of where they live and whether they have the ability to come to us.

Transgender Services

Today, we provide transgender services, including the Central Florida Transgender Peer Network and Child Gender Identity and Caregiver Support Group. We also provide individualized financial support to our transgender and gender non-conforming clients, free binders, and gender-affirming clothing. Due to current legislation, our trans community is in need of additional support now more than ever.

Through The Center’s Journey Forward, we will expand our transgender programming to increase our capacity and serve this underrepresented community by:

Elevating our Transgender Program Coordinator to a full-time Transgender Program Manager.
In partnership with other organizations, working to coordinate mutual aid efforts to provide
financial and material support.
Developing and implementing education and outreach programs to raise awareness about the
challenges facing the transgender and gender non-conforming community.

With your gift, you will ensure we provide more of our clients with the potentially life-saving gender affirming services they need when they need it most.

Priority: Bolstering The Center’s Long-Term Sustainability

Our people and our programs—together they are the strong foundation that will ensure The Center’s success and sustainability long into the future. Through The Center’s Journey Forward, we will strengthen our foundation by:

#1 Streamlining the technological infrastructure that supports our programs.

If The Center’s comprehensive approach to serving Central Florida’s LGBT+ community makes our organization a success, it also presents logistical challenges because we support clients on many different fronts simultaneously. By integrating all our programs and services onto a single technological platform, we will be able to:

Provide a seamless, personalized, and trauma-informed client experience.
Better manage our programs and coordinate our clients’ care.
Enable our case managers to optimize support for clients.
Enhance access to services and ensure we provide them as equitably as possible.
Combine multiple applications, including development, health services, scheduling, and
volunteer management.

#2 Improving how we promote, support, and deliver our life-saving programs.

We can’t meet our community’s needs if they don’t know where to go for support or if we aren’t building our capacity to grow alongside them. As we seek to serve more people and serve them better, we will

Strengthen our communications and marketing efforts to enhance the wider
community’s awareness of The Center and ensure the growing number of people who live
in and are moving to the Orlando area know who we are and how we can help.
Increase philanthropic support by hiring a giving manager to grow the resources that
support our current and future programs and services.
Grow our staff’s capacity by providing the trainings they need to make our programs more
effective and become lifelong catalysts for change.

Your gift to The Center’s Journey Forward will not only ensure The Center effectively promotes, empowers, and supports Central Florida’s LGBT+ population today, but it will also ensure we are here to deliver even more effective programs and services tomorrow.

The Time is Now. Become Our Partner Today.

The Center has a long track record of success. For over 40 years, we have been committed to promoting and empowering the LGBTQ+ community and its allies through advocacy, education, information, and support.

One of our greatest strengths has been our ability to be nimble, to flex and change, and to meet our clients wherever they are. Now is the time to reconfigure our headquarters, expand critical programs, and strengthen our foundation so that we can serve more people, serve them better, and improve The Center’s long-term sustainability.

Your gift to this campaign has the power to be transformational for The Center and for our community.

You will literally fuel our growth. The renovations you make possible will enable us to deliver care more effectively and expand our mental health counseling, food pantry, and mobile testing services.
You will ensure our long-term sustainability. Your investments in our infrastructure, marketing, philanthropic efforts, and staff will strengthen our foundation and ensure we can keep serving Central Florida’s LGBT+ community long into the future.

You will be the spark that ignites community change. You will make sure our community feels seen and heard. You will make Central Florida a better place for everyone to live.

The Center's Journey Forward:

A Campaign for Growth and Impact

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A Campaign for
Growth and Impact