Freedom to Marry Action Inc

“The 990 is reviewed in detail first by the treasurer and then all board members receive a copy and vote on wheter to adopt and submit the 990 as presented. During that process all concerns raised are addressed and changes made, if necessary, prior to filing with the irs.”

“Under the policy, all potential conflicts are reviewed annually either by the president of the organization or by the board chair depending on the nature of the conflict. All directors and all staff are subject to the policy. Any persons with conflicts will be excused from voting.”

“The board reviews the president's compensation annually based on his performance, his scope of responsibility and relevant benchmarks obtained through competitive research including review of other organization's 990's. The board sets a new salary rate upon completion of that review as appropriate.”

“The organization's governing documents, conflict of interest policy and financial statements are made available upon request.”

“State level lobbying winning more states is an especially urgent focus of freedom to marry action's central marriage campaign, part of our strategy to create the climate for a supreme court ruling bringing national resolution. 2013 was an historic year for the marriage movement as we brought the freedom to marry to 8 states: rhode island, delaware, minnesota, california, new jersey, hawaii, illinois and new mexico. In three of those courts were responsible for the outcome, but in five of them-rhode island, delaware, minnesota, hawaii and illinois-freedom to marry action was deeply engaged in a legislative lobbying campaign to pass a freedom to marry bill. In addition, a legislative campaign was begun that helped set the stage for the new jersey supreme court to issue its historic opinion bringing the freedom to marry to that state. With each state won we increased the population with access to the freedom to marry (as of jan. 1, 2014, 39% lived in a state with the freedom to marry versus 17% as of jan. 1, 2013), and with each state we win, we come closer to our aim of creating a critical mass of states, setting the stage for the supreme court to bring the country to national resolution. In each state where we have won the freedom to marry legislatively, freedom to marry action followed the same strategy we pioneered to win marriage with our partners in new york state. There we built an integrated campaign of all the partner groups working to win marriage. Each group contributed financial resources and expertise, and each group had an equal say in setting direction and managing the campaign. In these campaigns one of the partners-often freedom to marry action-serves as the fiscal sponsor to handle the transactions of the campaign. And in each, a campaign manager is hired to handle day-to-day activities of the campaign. For the five states won in 2013 freedom to marry action mobilized the groups and drafted the operating agreement that all the relevant partners signed onto. We managed the recruiting process for hiring the campaign manager, and we serve as the primary advisor for the campaign. Utilizing our years of experience in researching effective messages and messengers for helping people through their own individual journey to an acceptance of the freedom to marry, we also became the primary resource for each campaign's message development and implementation. Recognizing that more and more of the conversation in the us around marriage now occurs online, freedom to marry action has invested heavily in our web presence and digital tools. With our consultants at blue state digital, the architects of president obama's first term online campaign, we developed in 2012 and 2013 a variety of digital tools and a team expert at deploying them. We now communicate with some 800,000 online supporters, up from just 550,000 a year ago and we engage with them to help lay the foundation for winning more states and to help on the other tracks of our roadmap to victory. Our digital action center played a critical role in mobilizing the grassroots action around marriage in these five states. In every state with an active public legislative marriage campaign there is a need for state-of-the-art digital expertise and organizing, and freedom to marry action's digital action center meets those needs by taking on direct management of all the state level campaign's digital needs. The work of freedom to marry action's digital action center entails both start-up activities and ongoing organizing. Start-up includes: campaign branding website design, with access to state-of-the-art tools for engaging supporters list-building in target geographic areas and with target demographics establishment of a facebook and twitter presence ongoing organizing includes: updated website content emails using best practices to motivate action (volunteering, contacting legislators and outreach to other supporters.) strategic use of facebook and twitter, with extensive gr”

“Federal lobbying the primary goal of freedom to marry action's federal lobbying effort is to end federal discrimination in marriage through overturning the so-called "defense of marriage act" and through passage of the respect for marriage act. The ruling that doma's denial of federal protections and benefits for same-sex couples is unconstitutional, was one of the year's most significant accomplishments as it is making a tremendous dent in marriage discrimination. Within hours, deportations of the foreign born but legally wed spouses of us citizens in same-sex relationships were halted. Same-sex couples who are married and living in one of the 17 freedom to marry states, or the district of columbia, were quickly made fully eligible for the federal protections and responsibilities afforded all married couples. However, the doma decision did not complete the job. For those legally married same-sex couples (and widows or widowers) who had moved to or live in a state that discriminates against their marriages, access to their federal marital protections required concerted work in both congress and with the administration. There is no one rule across all federal programs as to whether the validity of a marriage is determined by where the couple got married ("place of celebration") or where the couple is living ("place of domicile" or "place of residence"). For same-sex couples the "choice of law" standard can make all the difference between respect for their marriage and the federal protections that flow from it and no protection whatsoever. As a result, during the second half of 2013 freedom to marry action partnered with our movement's legal organizations and others to help guide the obama administration toward full and fair implementation of the supreme court's ruling across all federal programs and throughout the country. In commendable response to our advocacy and the constitution's command, the administration took strong steps in crucial areas such as immigration, taxation, pension and personnel policies for federal employees and service members. By ensuring that married couples are respected by the federal government, even in discriminating states, we made a real and immediate difference in people's lives, put the entire country in play, and underscored that the "house divided" cannot stand. In addition, through our dc-focused work, we continued to amplify the case for the freedom to marry among the political and media elite in the capital, creating the drumbeat within the beltway among opinion-shapers like political operatives, political media, elected officials -- all of which influence the judiciary. Freedom to marry action's bipartisan federal team and media team cultivated relationships with many such opinion-leaders on both sides of the aisle, and we continued to make our case through salons, briefings, events at the national press club, and other forums. Recognizing that shaping the media climate in a bipartisan way is important to continuing the growth in support for the freedom to marry, freedom to marry action has been conducting outreach among conservatives for the last two years. Those contacts proved helpful in winning new york, defending the freedom to marry in new hampshire, and were often crucial to ensuring our state legislative successes in 2013. Throughout the year we helped build the growing drumbeat of support from the right side of the political aisle. Early in the year we helped recruit notable republicans to sign onto an important amicus brief that was filed with the us supreme court demonstrating the breadth of support for the freedom to marry. That was followed by the television ad shown in march on national cable news channels highlighting the support of three national republican leaders: first lady laura bush, vice president cheney, and secretary of state colin powell. To this support was added the announcement that same month that republican senator rob portman of ohio also supported the freedom”

“Other consultant: program service expenses 554,664. Management and general expenses 2,280. Fundraising expenses 21,628. Total expenses 578,572.”

“The process has not changed from prior year.”