L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Changes Name To Los Angeles LGBT Center

The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center is one of the largest gay and lesbian organization in the world by budget. News comes today that it is planning a $25 million expansion and is changing its name to the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Longtime CEO Lorri Jean sent the following message to supporters announcing the change:

I want you to be among the first to hear some exciting news. As of today, the Center has changed its name to Los Angeles LGBT Center, a name which more accurately reflects the diversity of people we have always served. With this new name comes the new logo that you see on your screen. Every element of this logo is unique in color and shape—like the people we serve—but when they come together, they form a circle of community. 

But our new name and logo are only part of the news I want to share with you. 

Today the Center is launching a $25-million campaign to help fund an expansion that will more than double the number of our beds for homeless LGBT youth, provide more than 100 units of affordable housing for low-income seniors and young adults, create a new senior center, and much more.
When finished, the new building will form a unique campus with our arts, educational and cultural facility—The Village at Ed Gould Plaza—that's directly across the street from it and span more than one city block in Hollywood. It will also become the Center's new headquarters, facilitating a major expansion of health and medical services at our current headquarters (McDonald/Wright building). You can read more about the campaign and the new campus in the current issue of Vanguard. 

Demand for the Center's services has grown enormously over the last several years. Today we welcome more than 42,000 client visits each month! This increased demand has strained our facilities and programs beyond capacity, especially in our programs for youth and seniors. Our beds for homeless youth are always full and demand for the services of our Youth Center on Highland are at an all-time high. And the number of clients in our Senior Services department has tripled in the past three years! 

The Center has always risen to the occasion for our community—relentlessly finding ways to build the health and strength of LGBT people when few others had the interest or the ability to do so. Now that the demand for services and housing for LGBT seniors and youth is acute, it's time for us to step up again. 

I'm enormously grateful to the many donors who have already invested in this exciting new effort and I'm thrilled to let you know that we have already raised a record $18.5 million in pledges! This includes the largest gift ever given by a living person to an LGBT organization. Philanthropist Anita May Rosenstein has pledged $6.5 million, which will be made by the Anita May Rosenstein, Wilbur May and Anita & Arnold Rosenstein Family Foundations. 

The early success of the campaign is also attributable to six other pledges of seven-figure gifts, including a $2 million pledge by Ariadne Getty and the Fuserna Foundation and $1 million pledges by David J. Bailey and Ron B. Shalowitz; Jacinto Hernandez & Charles Callahan; Barry McCabe; Loren S. Ostrow & Brian Newkirk; William & Cindy Shopoff. 

We've still got millions more to raise and lots of work ahead, but with the continued support of the community, I know we'll be as successful with this campaign as we were with the last two capital campaigns that created the McDonald/Wright building and The Village at Ed Gould Plaza.

This is exciting news! I have been a longtime supporter of the Center and will continue to be so!