ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

	Conference Homepage
	Abstracts

Diversity and the Voluntary Sector: Lessons from LGBT Non-Profits in Toronto
by
Miriam Smith
Department of Political Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S5B6

This paper presents results from a large-scale qualitative study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) voluntary sector organizations in the city of Toronto. To date, there is very little systematic data on LGBT voluntary sector organizing, despite the important role played by non-profit organizations in LGBT urban cultures, especially in advocacy and service provision to the LGBT community. In 2002, the author gathered data on over one hundred LGBT non-profit organizations in Toronto. The paper describes the general contours of LGBT organizing in Toronto, as a representative case study of urban LGBT politics in the global city and provides a snapshot of data on the number and type of non-profits groups, their funding, activities, and internal governance. The paper compares this data to the typical depiction of voluntary sector organizations in the literature and finds that LGBT non-profits challenge the dominant models of voluntary sector organizing, especially in their close connections to a traditionally marginalized subculture, their relatively informal and poorly funded organizations, and their emphasis on participatory and democratic decision-making. Despite the important role played by LGBT non-profits in serving the LGBT communities in the city of Toronto, most of the work of these groups does not qualify for charitable status in Canadian tax law, which discourages advocacy activities by charities. Despite the marginalization of LGBT groups in policy debates over the voluntary sector, the data show that local government, social service agencies, and foundations have funded local LGBT non-profit initiatives. The paper concludes by discussing how current policy debates over the voluntary sector have marginalized discussion of diversity issues in Canadian non-profits and argues that the data presented demonstrate conclusively the economic, social and political importance of the non-profits such as those in the LGBT sector which are organized based on a collective sense of social and political identity shared by a previously marginalized group.

Date received: September 29, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camk-90.