2014 Leadership Conference Engages & Inspires

February 10, 2014

Participants at the 2014 Wisconsin LGBTQ Leadership Conference. Photo by Patrick Farabaugh, Our Lives Magazine.

The 2014 Wisconsin LGBTQ Leadership Conference was a great success, with over 150 people from across the state of Wisconsin attending. We partnered with our good friends at Fair Wisconsin to host this third annual conference that brings together LGBTQ leaders and allies to learn, improve skills, network, and make change.

Kris Hermanns, Executive Director of the Pride Foundation in Seattle, offered inspiring keynote remarks on Saturday morning to kick off the conference. She encouraged us to focus on telling the stories of LGBTQ people to inspire action and to bring resources and momentum to the work for LGBTQ equality. On Sunday morning, Christopher Clark from the Chicago office of Lambda Legal followed the theme, offering engaging stories of his work to represent and win rights for transgender individuals in the Midwest.

In addition to these plenary sessions, the conference also featured over 25 workshops on topics including philanthropy, legal issues, homophobia and discrimination, health, advocacy, and many more. The conference also included Wisconsin’s first ever Trans* Leadership Institute, a full-day workshop on Friday that led-off the events of the weekend.

Katie Belanger and Gary Hollander, the leaders of Fair Wisconsin and Diverse & Resilient, closed the conference on Sunday with a dialogue session about the state of the movement and the opportunities for making change. We look forward to working together to make next year’s conference even better.