Ex-Gay Watch

I have often expressed my personal opinion that Exodus relies upon Focus on the Family as its primary “benefactor.” Specifically, I contend that Focus spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on Love Won Out events, billboards, political ads, and press releases that prominently spotlight Exodus leaders making antigay political speeches and supporting other activists’ false claims about the origins of sexual orientation and the nature and likelihood of “change.”

I have reasoned that the fortune spent by Focus on the marketing of Exodus would, if it were publicly disclosed, amount to a very large percentage of Exodus’ own annual budget.

In 2005, Exodus claimed total revenue of $808,000, according to its IRS 990 form (via GuideStar) — not much money for an organization that was staffed by 11-20 people in spacious offices in Orlando, Florida. Exodus’ fundraising expense for 2005 is given as just $37,351 — $16,700 of that was spent on Exodus’ monthly Impact newsletter, and just $7,913 was spent on compensation, salaries and wages related to fundraising.

Exodus’ fundraising operation was weak, and its overall budget in 2005 was certainly not sufficient to employ an experienced lobbyist in the near future.

Yet in recent months, Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin notes, Exodus hired a lobbyist from Focus on the Family. Amanda Banks not only served Focus as a lobbyist, but her political consultancy continues to list Focus on the Family at the top of its list of clients and employers, even while she is formally employed by Exodus with unknown compensation.

So I repeat my contention: The financials at Exodus don’t quite add up. With little apparent fundraising, Exodus receives in the neighborhood of $800,000 per year. Exodus manages a staff and office space that could easily cost twice Exodus’ annual budget. The hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by Focus on the Family to market Exodus are withheld by Exodus from its public financial records.

I reiterate my open invitation to Exodus to become financially transparent — to inform the public of the amounts and sources of the marketing services and speaking fees, enjoyed by Exodus and its officers, employees, and consultants, that do not appear in Exodus’ public filings.

Meanwhile, I invite you, readers, to come forward with any documented information about direct and indirect Exodus revenues or expenses that, until now, have been hidden from public view.

A Tenable Belief analyzes ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett’s holiday fund-raising appeal. On his home page, Bennett claims an immediate need for $25,000 to repay debts and then warns that his activist operation might not continue unless donors supply $100,000 by Dec. 31 to cover just the first three months of 2007.

ATB notices what’s missing from Bennett’s claims of financial hardship:

• No mention is made of funds earmarked for, or expenses paid because of, the radio show, the Jerusalem trip, or the new church.
• A drop in donations would be expected after giving up travel for preaching and speaking engagements in June.
• Receiving $100K in December might increase Bennett’s peace of mind, but only $25K is urgently needed to pay off debt.
• Is the new church is consuming a significant proportion of the ministry’s energy? If so, is there a plan to bring in enough $50/month global members in order to fund it?

From Focus on the Family’s ‘Love Won Out’ Conference Comes to Woodstock; Message That ‘Change is Possible’” to Be Shared in Georgia on Nov. 4:

“The issues surrounding homosexuality have become so politicized in recent years, that it is easy for people to forget how deeply personal these matters are. We hope to change that,” said Melissa Fryrear, director of Focus’ gender issues department and a conference speaker. “Love Won Out is a conference that reaches out to those who are hurting and offers them a message of understanding and of hope.”

An brief examination of Melissa Fryrear’s media release statement for Focus on the Family (FOTF) :
Read more…

In a suburb of Orlando, Florida, there is a small office building near the airport where six offices share 6,000 square feet of office space.

As of mid-2005, Exodus International was headquartered in one of the six offices, occupying perhaps 1,000 square feet. Please note that I am not disclosing the office address. (I’d disclose the source of this photo and real estate information, but in this case to do so would disclose the address.)

The office is a bit small for an organization of a dozen-or-so full-time employees, and by itself the office seems inadequate to support 400,000 inquiries per year — unless, of course, most of those inquiries are auto-responded and auto-filed by a forgotten PC sitting in a corner.

I’m not surprised by the size of the Exodus office — it has been clear to me for some years that much of the work publicly attributed directly or indirectly to Exodus International is actually done off-premises — and off-budget, too, by generous organizations such as Focus on the Family that can afford national newspaper-ad and billboard campaigns.

While poking around public records (which I’m not going to specify in the interest of Alan’s privacy) I found last August Alan and Leslie Chambers purchased a four bedroom home for $325,500. I don’t think Leslie is a full time staffer at Exodus but I did find record she was the manager of Exodus’ 2004 Freedom Conference.

Update: Alan Chambers added the following information in a comment posted to this entry.

1. In 1999 my family gave us money to buy our first home in College Park–Downtown Orlando’s oldest neighborhood. We bought on a street that had yet to “catch on”. We paid $137,000 for our home. 6 years later we sold it for $325,000. We had paid a lot off on our home and thus had a lot to put down on our new, modest, home. We live beneath our means and we do not go in debt, aside from a small mortgage.

2. I am happy to tell you that in 2005 my income from Exodus AND speaking engagements was about $65k. Far less than the presidents of HRC, GLAAD, GLSEN and the other pro-gay organizations.

3. All honorariums and proceeds from my book go to Exodus and not to me.

4. Leslie coordinated the 2003 Exodus Conference for $10/hour. Her total income for 2003 was about $10k. She did this as a favor to Exodus so that we didn’t have to pay a lot of $ to hire out.

5. For those of you who think $325k is a lot for a home in Orlando, think again. We sold our 1350 sq. ft. home in College Park for $325 and bought our new home for the same price in Winter Park. Today, both homes are worth more than $450k–appraised. The Orlando market is staggering.

Exodus financial results for 2004 are now available, courtesy of MinistryWatch:

Contributions to Exodus rose 36 percent, from $454,000 in 2003 to $617,000 in 2004. In the prior year, contributions rose 40 percent, from $324,500 to $454,000.

Other revenue sources rose more than 50 percent, from $200,000 to $308,000. In the prior year, other revenue sources plummeted from $352,000 to $200,000.

Total revenues rose to $925,315 from $654,653 in 2003 — an increase of 41 percent. In the prior year, revenues fell slightly, from $677,125 in 2002.

Expenses were down only slightly in 2004, at about $660,000, after a massive cut from $795,000 in 2002.

All told, Exodus attained a budget surplus of $267,000 in 2004, compared to budget deficits in the two prior years: $13,000 in 2003 and an alarming $118,000 in 2002.

Why the big increase in earnings? Opinions will vary; Exodus provides few direct clues. Strategic changes during this period included (in my opinion) an increased focus on lobbying for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriages and civil unions; speeches, media events, and networking indirectly supporting the re-election of President Bush and religious-rightist lawmakers; increased publicity for Exodus antigay political activities via religious-rightist media such as WorldNetDaily and the American Family Association’s AgapePress; and a de-emphasis of the organization’s historic but unprofitable mission of material and logistical support for local exgay member ministries and counselors.

MinistryWatch gives Exodus a mediocre three-star rating for financial efficiency, which is below average for the advocacy sector. Just as bad: Exodus earns a mere grade of “C” for financial transparency; in other words, Exodus provided minimal financial information in response to requests, and withheld this information until seven months after Dec. 31, 2004, the end of the fiscal year. In order to receive an “A,” Exodus would need to provide ample information within the first five months of the new year.

Conservative Christian Blogger/journalist Justin McLachlan disagreed took issue with recent calls for an investigation of Focus on the Family’s tax-exempt status.

In response, McLachlan researched the status of Teach The Facts, a suburban Washington parents group battling the religious right over the local school district’s sex-education curriculum.

McLachlan concluded that TTF began advertising the tax deductibility of online donations without disclosing (initially) that its application for 501(c)3 status remains pending with the IRS.

Good detective work, Mr. McLachlan. I still question whether the premature fund-raising of a relatively new parents group is comparable to the machinations of a $120 million fundamentalist media empire whose supposed 501(c)3 charitable donations visibly subsidize the partisan political activities of a 501(c)4 entity.

From Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com:

The Pat Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice is ostensibly a religious-right nonprofit legal-advocacy organization.

But Tony Mauro of Legal Times reports that Jay Sekulow, head of ACLJ, has “feathered his nest” with perks far out of line for an organization that calls itself either “nonprofit” or “Christian.” Mauro uncovers payments to Sekulow that are extreme for a nonprofit; the use of a private jet; chauffeur-driven cars; several houses; nepotism (ACLJ jobs for family members); and signs of money laundering. ACLJ provides all this and more to a man who in the 1980s was accused of securities fraud, and who now (like James Dobson) profits from a complex web of personal, business and nonprofit entities.

Mauro contends that Sekulow’s profligacy has produced a backlash among associates who believe the handling of his organizations’ finances does not exemplify Christian teachings.

It’s about economics. More specifically, it’s about economic sociology.

Consider: the social cost of coming out and living openly as a gay person continues to decline rapidly. (In modern America, it’s increasingly rare for a gay person to lose their job, get cut off from family and friends, or be discriminated against in housing for being gay; non-discrimination has not been codified into existing federal law, but the social market is ahead of legislation here. I’m not saying there is no social cost to being out–there is still the prospect of random violence, subtler forms of discrimination, strangers calling you “faggot,”"dyke,” etc. In aggregate, social costs are shrinking but will always exist in some form).

Meanwhile, the private costs and psychic costs of the other choices a gay person faces, including a) remaining in the closet, b) living a double life, or c) pursuing an ex-gay path, remain as high as they have always been. (The main cost of these choices is the toll of constant vigilance. There is little evidence that most people can successfully change their basic sexual programming. Even optimistic ex-gay organizations claim only a 30% success rate–and they define “change” fluidly).

What we call “society,” is simply a social market. On balance, as the cost of living openly shrinks while the cost of being closeted or ex-gay remains high, fewer and fewer people will choose the expensive path. Already we see that the ex-gay movement is strongest in arenas where the social costs of coming out are still high–in smaller towns across the U.S., in the Bible belt, and within conservative religious communities.

If the ex-gay Movement (capital-M) is to continue to exist, it will largely be dependent on keeping the social costs of living as an openly gay person high–at least as high as the psychic costs of living as an ex-gay. To that end, their recent efforts have been attempts to maintain and increase the social costs of being gay: fighting gay marriage, blocking anti-gay bullying initiatives in schools, fighting federal non-discrimination law, encouraging the idea that gay people choose to be gay. However, I think it is too late for them to turn back the clock. As I’ve already noted, the social market has far outpaced legal protections as a mechanism for reducing the social costs of being gay.

What the Movement Ex-gays fail to appreciate, I think, is that the social cost of being gay needn’t be less than the social benefit of passing as straight for most gay people to choose the former. That’s because there are real associated benefits to being “out,” including the prospect of lifelong monogamous coupling (or a great sex life as a single person, depending on one’s inclination), having one’s sexuality become a non-issue, dealing honestly at all times with family and friends, etc. These are important benefits for many people, and they outweigh associated costs.

If I’m right, we can expect to see anti-gay rhetoric get more heated in years to come. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the fringe right advocate things like criminalization, imprisonment or castration for gay people. It’s important to remember that this extreme rhetoric will be a reaction to the fact that social costs for being gay are actually falling. The rhetoric will necessarily become more extreme as they attempt to swing the balance back in their favor. This will be the harbinger of the collapse of their Movement.

I want to be clear: I am talking about the diminishing influence of the Movement, not about prospects for individual ex-gays. There will always be individuals who choose the ex-gay path–those who dislike being gay so much, or who have such a conservative religious dogma, that the cost/benefit equation will never fall in favor of coming out. For them, the choice to live as ex-gay always will be–and always should be–available. And rather than deserving our scorn, I believe they deserve our sympathy and solidarity.

Indeed, I think the ultimate goal for all of us is to have the right to choose whichever path we want, and walk it happily.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability monitors the financial integrity of evangelical Christian ministries on an annual basis.

Christianity Today notes this week that ECFA’s standards are a bit rudimentary: Participating charitable ministries, for example, are permitted to pay most of their income in lavish salaries to executives and fund-raisers. The magazine says 30.9 percent of ECFA member organizations pay more than 25 percent of the income on fundraising, and four ministries spend more than 50 percent.

CT notes that another organization, MinistryWatch, goes a step further: It “provides ratings and detailed analyses of the financial and doctrinal particulars of more than 500 Christian ministries. When Wall Watchers detects problems, it issues donor alerts, suggesting that people ‘prayerfully consider withholding contributions.’”

As it happens, MinistryWatch monitors Exodus International, the ex-gay network.

Rated in the efficiency of its fund-raising and spending, Exodus ranks in 287th place out of 446 ministries. That’s the poorest 35 percent of the rankings, in terms of efficiency. However, Exodus ranks 29th, or in the top six percent, in how it uses its assets. Among all 22 rated organizations devoted specifically to issue advocacy, Exodus ranks halfway down the list in terms of efficiency.

In transparency of its financial disclosures, Exodus earns a round of applause: It gets an A.

However, on a chart comparing the organization’s revenues to its age, Exodus scores low: After more than 25 years, Exodus revenues are still under $1 million per year. Clearly there do not appear to be tens of thousands of successful ex-gays rallying financial support for Exodus operations.

MinistryWatch helpfully charts Exodus financials for every year from 1999 to 2002. The key trouble areas: heavy deficit spending in 2002, and little room in the annual budgets for long-term investment.

Not reported, unfortunately, are the primary sources of Exodus’ revenues; the extent to which the Exodus board overlaps with Focus on the Family, and the extent to which Exodus relies on Focus on the Family for marketing, publicity, and access to lobbyists and state and federal legislatures.

Focus on the Family’s own financials are far healthier, and again free of major scandal. But MinistryWatch notes some problems: consistently mediocre efficiency in financial performance; grandiose real estate holdings; profiteering by James Dobson’s private company; and overdependence on Dobson’s fan base, given Dobson’s age (68) and recent health problems.

Afterword: Christianity Today reported last year on longtime Washington Republican political insider Donald P. Hodel’s growing role as president and CEO of Focus on the Family.