New Project Targets Federal Agencies for LGBT Rights

A new project dedicated to making federal agency policies and practices more responsive to the rights and needs of the LGBT community has been announced by Public Interest Projects (PIP), the effort’s fiscal sponsor. The new project, currently being developed, will work in close collaboration with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation, Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. The effort will bring additional resources to the efforts of organizations already working on non-legislative policy changes critical to the health, well-being and equality of LGBT people.

Matt Foreman and Maureen Byrnes will lead the new effort. For nearly 30 years, Foreman has helped launch and build a number of national and grassroots organizations dedicated to securing and protecting LGBT equality. Through his work at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Task Force, the Empire State Pride Agenda and the New York City Anti-Violence Project, Foreman is intimately familiar with issues facing the LGBT community. He will divide his time between this new effort and overseeing the gay and immigrant rights programs at the Haas, Jr. Fund.

Byrnes has extensive experience in public policy and federal affairs. In the 1980s and 90s, she served as executive director of the National Commission on AIDS and as staff director of the Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee. More recently, Byrnes served as executive director of Human Rights First and Director of Policy Initiatives and Health and Human Service Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

PIP, headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) public charity that operates grant making, technical assistance and strategic-planning programs for institutional and individual donors interested in social justice and human rights issues. By developing sustainable partnerships among donors, grantees and allied groups, PIP seeks to foster a movement for positive social change resulting in equality, fairness and a stronger participatory democracy.