CA California Faith for Equality announces the resumption of operations

The Board of Directors of California Faith for Equality (CFE) announced today that it has retained the services of an experienced transition management team, enabling it to resume operations that had been interrupted in April due to funding

challenges.

Rev. Dr. Neil Thomas, the President of CFE, announced, “we are incredibly pleased to announce that due to the support of our community we have been able to

retain some of the best nonprofit executive staffing available anywhere.”

 He noted that the organization had retained one of the nation’s most experienced nonprofit transition management professional services firms, Third Sector Company, based in Long Beach and Vancouver.

Thomas went on to announce that the new Interim Executive Director of CFE will be Marc Haupert, a highly experienced transition and executive management consultant and a veteran in leadership of major nonprofit organizations in the Midwest and California. “Marc’s well demonstrated organizational, programming and advocacy skills will ensure maximum productivity and a smooth transition to a permanent staffing structure,” said Thomas.

The management team will also include Kurt Swanson, whose extensive nonprofit and business experience includes serving as Administrative Director of the AIDS Pastoral Care Network, Chicago’s largest interfaith network working with LGBTQ communities to facilitate care for those with HIV disease. Swanson will serve as Interim Director of Operations and Programs. Haupert and Swanson will be assisted by The Third Sector’s CEO, Jeffrey Wilcox and other Third Sector consultants, comprising a team that offers unsurpassed organizational development leadership.

“We want to sincerely thank the committed clergy and secular leaders whose belief in the importance of having voices of faith at the center of the struggle for equality for God’s GLBTQ community has brought us five years of notable success, in the face of significant challenges. CFE has grown into a statewide organization that has effectively harnessed the power of religious witness on behalf of civil rights and religious freedom, providing important leadership in California and support for people of faith organizing in other states,” Thomas said.

“I am honored to be stepping into leadership of one of our state’s most important advocacy and education organizations working to ensure equal rights and protections for all in our communities,” Haupert added. “From my first work in LGBT and African American civil rights advocacy in the 70’s, to leading some of our nation’s leading AIDS service organizations in the 80’s and 90’s, to assisting nonprofits of all kinds to better serve their missions in recent years, I have been continually awed by the progress that a dedicated and passionate few can achieve.”

 “We are at a turning point in the struggle for equal rights for the LGBTQ community. There is much more to do, and the voices of people of faith will need to continue to be the loudest expressions of truth, compassion and fierce dedication to human rights, as they have throughout history,” he said.

 The new office of the organization will be located at 4444 Riverside Drive, Suite 104, Toluca Lake, CA 91505. Haupert can be reached at Marc@CAfaithForEquality.org. More information is available at www.cafaithforequality.org