A year and a half ago, I flew to Tulsa to work with The Equality Network. At that time, TEN was a small organization of committed volunteers. While they were doing remarkable work with few resources, they recognized it was time to grow so they could have an even bigger impact on their state. Leading the board through strategic planning, we envisioned what it would take to hire their first executive director and expand to have a truly statewide presence.

Coming out of that meeting, they went to work. They recruited Troy Stevenson, then Executive Director of Garden State Equality in New Jersey, to take a chance on coming back to the state he calls home to head up the organization. They raised more money than ever before to bring him on board.

Now, just 18 months later, the organization is in a remarkably different place. Thanks to Troy’s leadership and the hard work of their board, the organization has built a reputation as a real player in state politics and a leader in the community.

One sign of that strength is that the leadership of Cimmaron Alliance, a regional LGBT advocacy organization in the center of the state, approached TEN about merging. Out of that recently completed merger came a new brand for the group: Freedom Oklahoma.

According to Troy, this merger combined the 20 year history and amazing fundraising ability of the Cimarron Alliance, with the proven political capability and reputation of The Equality Network. And it could not have come at a better time. 17 anti-LGBT bills were just filed in Oklahoma this legislative session, and having the combined resources of two organizations has truly given them the capacity to be a real force at the Capitol.

Seeing a member group take the planning we did and run with it is remarkable. While the norm is to do strategic planning every three years or so, both the organization and the policy landscape in the state have changed so much in such a short time that they invited me back in February to help envision how best to leverage the power they’ve built up and advance their work.

I got to spend a snowy Sunday with a remarkable board. Despite coming from two different organizations, we found a lot of alignment on the path forward.

Like many Federation members who take advantage of the resources provided by our State Leadership Project, Troy felt that having me there to facilitate the retreat brought an objective outside perspective.

“Ian validated many aspects of our plan, and guided us in a positive direction when some aspects were more problematic. As always, he helped to structure the planning process in such a way that everyone involved left having learned a lot, and feeling more connected to Freedom Oklahoma and the mission that we developed together.”

The new organization’s immediate goal is to fight back the onslaught of legislation that has been introduced this session. But in the longer term, they intend to build intersectional coalitions that allow them to do public education and advocacy around stopping the abuse of so-called "conversion therapy;" pushing for state and municipal protections from discrimination in employment and public accommodation; and a major push to lift up the voices of transgender Oklahomans, to make sure that progress is happening for all of our community - not just the cisgender members of it.

With challenge after challenge coming from right-wing legislators like Rep. Sally Kearn, I’m glad to know we’ve got a remarkable team at Freedom Oklahoma to fend off the bad bills and keep building support for equality in communities across the state.

Stay Updated: