Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center

Adrian Shanker is the founding executive director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center whose innovative leadership in an underserved community of Eastern Pennsylvania has led to transformative change. Adrian had chosen to lead LGBT community advocacy efforts in a community with little prior LGBT infrastructure. In six years, he built a powerful organization that has completely changed the support available to LGBT people in this region. While many LGBT activists choose to work in large cities, Adrian focused his attention where he’s needed most. A specialist in LGBT health policy, he created the biennial statewide Pennsylvania LGBT Health Needs Assessment. He then utilized these data to solve numerous problems for LGBT Pennsylvanians. Adrian’s data-driven approach to policy and leadership has brought unlikely allies to his work. Adrian previously led Equality Pennsylvania for three years during the marriage equality fight. He currently serves as Commissioner on the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs. 

LGBT Pennsylvanians face unique challenges that impact our physical, social, and mental health. These disparities result in a lower life satisfaction: LGBT people across our country are 67% less likely to report being very happy with their lives than the general public (Pew Research 2013). 

My work directly addresses these issues by providing arts, health, youth, and pride programs, as well as supportive services and advocacy that empower the LGBT community to feel validated, supported, and connected. Programs and services at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center enable community members to celebrate their identities and build supportive relationships within the community. My efforts provide essential and life-enriching outlets for members of the LGBT community, a historically marginalized and underserved population, to reach our full potential. In this way, these programs and services are crucial for elevating humanity towards a more equitable and welcoming world.

Individuals across the globe and throughout the LGBT community encounter staggering and devastating disparities with respect to physical, mental, and social health. Physically, LGBT people are much more susceptible to cancer, substance abuse, HIV, obesity, and COVID-19 infection, among other health concerns (2018 PA LGBT Health Needs Assessment). Furthermore, members of the LGBT community are more likely to experience mental health conditions, with 77.6% of LGBT Pennsylvanians reporting some mental health problem in the past 12 months (2018 PA LGBT Health Needs Assessment). What’s more, 16% of respondents rarely or never receive the social and emotional support they need (2018 PA LGBT Health Needs Assessment). These issues are a threat to equity everywhere, and various surveys and studies have found similar results at national and global levels (Pew Research, 2013; UK Government Equalities Office, 2018; Being LGBT in Asia, 2014). 

Through my leadership at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, we offer programs and advocacy that have and continue to lead to behavioral, clinic, and policy changes to improve access to health services for the LGBT community.

Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center is dedicated to providing programs and advocacy to advance the health of the LGBT population in Eastern Pennsylvania. At The Center, we measure LGBT health disparities through our groundbreaking statewide LGBT health needs assessment -- the most comprehensive state-level LGBT health data set in the United States -- and then we utilize the data to develop and broadly implement leading-edge programs to address the identified health disparities. We also use advocacy tools and clinical training to improve care through policy and clinical changes.

At our heart, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center is a community-based organization very much driven by community needs. We serve a ten-county region covering most of Eastern Pennsylvania excluding Philadelphia and reaching into vastly underserved rural communities. We support the LGBT community by celebrating our history and culture, and we include outreach to allies, bringing the entire community together to enhance justice and elevate humanity for all.

We strive to engage our community in ways that work for them. In partnership with the PA Department of Health, we administer our state’s 2020 biennial LGBT Health Needs Assessment to more than 6,000 LGBT Pennsylvanians in a two-month period. This project enables us to understand the needs in our community, our current ability to address those needs, and the ways we can improve to best strengthen our community.

We are a home for a number of community groups from vastly underrepresented parts of the LGBT community, including trans communities, asexual communities, and LGBT people of color. We seek out opportunities to empower these groups to help us decide how to advance the needs of our community. We believe in the community we serve. And we believe in a vibrant, engaged, and represented community.

The LGBT community has historically faced significant disparities and challenges, and LGBT people have fought to eliminate them. Yet, disparities and challenges remain, especially in the current climate, and especially if they are an LGBT person who identifies with additional marginalized communities. This work to strengthen and support LGBT people has always been critical, but I feel now, more than ever, that we must work to mobilize, support, and fight for and with our community. LGBT people are traditionally left behind, and my work is dedicated to celebrating our history and supporting a stronger, more inclusive, and more vibrant community.

Every community deserves an LGBT community center. In 2013, I lead Equality Pennsylvania - a statewide organization focused solely on legislative change. It was an exciting time, in the midst of the movement for marriage equality. But at the time, I had lived in Allentown, PA for a decade and felt that my community needed more frequent, structured, and vibrant LGBT community programs. So I left EqualityPA and launched Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. I didn’t know then that we would become a leader in the fight for LGBT health equity. I didn’t even really know what that meant. I was just trying to buy a building, renovate it, and start community-based programs to create a cultural hub for our vastly underserved LGBT community. In 2015, we received a grant to pilot a Health Needs Assessment. The results of that first needs assessment were shocking: LGBT community members in my community were experiencing severe health disparities and barriers to care. The pervasive disparities in our community were affecting every aspect of LGBT lives: higher behavioral risk factors, lower rates of preventative screenings. This was a wakeup call, and it changed the trajectory of my work and the direction of my organization.

Without our health we don’t have our lives. And minoritized communities, including the LGBT population, experience healthcare discrimination and barriers to care that shorten LGBT lives. I became passionate about LGBT health equity -- particularly for rural communities -- because in a time when the legal rights for LGBT people have expanded in the United States, our access to healthcare information and services has not improved. I’m a full-time LGBTQ advocate who has been out in my identity for my entire career. So I was surprised when I experienced a negative healthcare experience because of my LGBT identity -- I had seen the statistics from our needs assessment, that 53% of LGBT people (75% of transgender people) feared going to a doctor because of a negative healthcare experience in their past, and those numbers on the page, while shocking, became very real while I was living through it myself. For many in the LGBT community, these negative experiences make it increasingly likely that LGBT people will not go to a doctor when they need to - for preventative screenings or when they are sick. A systems change is necessary to ensure that healthcare is available for all of us.

As any long-time LGBT community activist would affirm, we have always needed to learn how to become our own advocates. During the height of the HIV / AIDS epidemic, it was activists that taught themselves pharmacology to pressure the FDA to act. During the fight for marriage equality, all of us activists taught ourselves more than we ever expected about constitutional law. And today, we continue to aggressively learn in order to be the best advocates we can be. I did not always have expertise in LGBT health advocacy or policy. As my advocacy career shifted to this most pressing need, I found mentors, enrolled in the LGBT Health Policy graduate certificate program at The George Washington University, and learned on the job. During a six-year period, I have excelled at this work. I am now frequently asked to train healthcare leaders, I serve on committees for our state department of health, I have administered major health grants, including from the Network of the National Library of Medicine, I have authored five book chapters and edited one book on the subject (a book which Book Riot has said is one of the “best six books addressing healthcare system inequities”.) My own lived experience, matched only by the fire in my belly for structural change, has led me to develop the unique expertise necessary to deliver this project.

Starting and leading a community non-profit with a focus on health equity is not easy. Allied organizations sometimes become the target of organizing and advocacy because they are not providing healthcare in equitable ways. In one situation, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center was leading a campaign to expand availability of anal papillomavirus (Pap) tests to screen for anal cancer. A local hospital had invited us to do outreach at their colorectal cancer fair but when they saw our materials they asked us to leave because they said they didn’t want religious leaders to be offended. It took a few years to repair our relationship with this hospital, and their doctors still don’t provide access to anal Pap tests. But we have been able to work with them in other areas. In another example, a health insurance company that had been a significant donor to our organization changed a policy that had a negative impact on transgender health, we needed to carefully advocate to reverse their policy change and also maintain the relationship. We were successful despite the setback, and potential damage to a key relationship.

A leader is someone who can deliver people to action. That’s what I do every day. The morning after the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, I woke up, read the news, and like everyone else -- was in shock. Immediately, I went into my office and called one other employee in with me. With only four hours to plan, we organized a 300-person rally and march from one of our gay bars to the other. That week, we organized or co-organized four more events to keep our community engaged during a time of fear and mourning. At the same time, we raised $16,000 to support emergency security upgrades on our building and an additional $5,000 to send to the LGBT center in Orlando. Leadership is about engagement; it’s also about providing a means for people who share your values to take action. This is just one example where I have done that.

Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center is the only professionally-staffed, community-based agency in the Lehigh Valley that serves the LGBT community -- and founding this non-profit organization is only one of my most impactful projects. In 2015, I established the most comprehensive statewide LGBT health dataset in the country. This biennial assessment has made a tremendous impact for the LGBT community in both Pennsylvania and across the nation, and is a critical tool for evaluating and meeting community needs, as well as conveying the pervasive social and health disparities that LGBT people face every day. 

In listening to the community, I have lead many successful groundbreaking actions in health and LGBT healthcare, like my efforts to make 14 of Pennsylvnaina’s 18 Pride Festivals smoke-free events, my collaboration with the Allentown Health Bureau and Grindr (an international gay dating app) to launch an innovative direct outreach effort that led dozens of community members to get vaccinated for Hepatitis A, and my extensive work to keep our community informed with accurate, up-to-date, and non-discriminatory health information during the pandemic. Such unique and impactful actions have made me a recognized leader in LGBT health promotion and earned me the title “Healthcare Hero” from Lehigh Valley Business. 

And that’s not all. My initiatives at The Center expand beyond health and healthcare - we provide our region with its only professionally-staffed LGBT youth program, its only community-based forum for LGBT arts and culture events, its most comprehensive community archive, its largest annual Pride festival, and much more.

Activities: The first component of our theory of change is conducting rigorous data collection. Through a biennial, statewide health needs assessment administered in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Health, we gather survey data about a wide range of health needs of LGBT Pennsylvanians. 

Outputs: As a result of these data collection activities, there are data on a wide range of health and social needs of LGBT people available to academics, policymakers, advocates, and LGBT community leaders. Another result is that these interested parties form coalitions to address key issues highlighted in the data. Through such partnerships, the data is utilized to mobilize support for organizations and initiatives that serve the LGBT community, to develop evidence-informed programs to address LGBT community needs, and to fuel advocacy efforts.

Short-term outcomes: In the short-term, there is increased visibility of LGBT people and their unique health needs, and more affirming health and social supports are available to LGBT individuals. Through continuous evaluation--including focus groups, surveys, and community conversations--we learn what strengths and limitations there are to these supports.

Long-term outcomes: In the long-term, we develop evidence-based practices that can be shared and replicated across other communities, and health-related disparities impacting the LGBT community are reduced and, ultimately, eliminated. 

This theory of change is best illustrated through our work on tobacco-related health disparities. Data collected about attitudes and behavior regarding tobacco in the LGBT community drives funding and program development within our organization. Our organization works with a large coalition of LGBT organizations, public health professionals, educators, and legislators to promote tobacco prevention and cessation. We continuously evaluate and improve our strategies, and we share those lessons learned with colleagues at conferences. As we have grown as a recognized leader in this field, we have become a statewide contractor for the Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control. As we continue to collect and monitor data on LGBT tobacco use, we hope to see sustained reduction in the relevant health disparities.

My work is focused on systems change, so while we serve over 60,000 people annually and hope to grow this three-fold over the next five years, the metric of greater importance is how many people are impacted by the systems changes we can enact -- which is our entire community, because our work is broad and the impact is large. For example, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I led an effort asking our state Secretary of Health to mandate LGBT data collection with regard to COVID-19 infections. Six weeks later, Pennsylvania became the first state in the U.S. to mandate this. Our successful advocacy impacts every LGBT Pennsylvanian whether they are aware or not because the result is better targeted data to keep our community safe from this dangerous virus.

Within the next year, I plan to utilize data from the 2020 Pennsylvania LGBT Health Needs Assessment to create responsive campaigns to address LGBT health disparities, especially with regard to access to care issues, preventative cancer screenings, and mental health.

Within the next five years, I would like to identify our most successful LGBT health promotion effort and develop a replicable model that can be utilized by LGBT centers in other communities across the United States.

Without our health we don’t have our lives, so removing barriers to adequate and affirming healthcare is critical to the elevation of humanity.

The primary barrier I encounter to this work is funding. There are incredibly low levels of Federal U.S. funding available for non-HIV-related LGBT health promotion. I have demonstrated technical and cultural expertise, but access to funds to advance this work is the greatest barrier to the success of my work.

The good news is that financial barriers are overcome by grants and donations. We recently received a grant that does support some of the year-one goals for this project, with a focus on tobacco-related disparities, and there are additional grants we are looking into. However, grants are also limiting, sometimes too specific to be able to carry out a visionary plan. Unrestricted funding based on a general belief in my leadership and our ability to achieve visionary results presents the best opportunity to overcome the financial barrier.

In the context of this project, I partner with Pennsylvania Department of Health, Public Health Management Corporation, American Lung Association, Health Promotion Council, the National LGBT Cancer Network, and the nearby LGBT centers in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, PA. These partnerships include efforts to continuously measure LGBT health disparities, provide direct and targeted outreach to eliminate these disparities, and to work toward structural changes to remove barriers to care.

Our business model is that we address the needs of the community and work hard to find the resources to do it, but we put the community first. Through diverse revenue sources (40% government, 30% corporate / foundation, 15% individual, 10% program / fee-for-service, and 5% event income) we are able to ensure that most community needs are met. Where this falls short is when I have a large-scale visionary plan for health equity that requires significant funds to address, then we need to seek an investment in visionary structural change in order to move forward. This is the case with this project.

Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center funds our mission through grassroots fundraising efforts, including sustained donations from individuals, as well as grants and partnerships with foundations, government entities, and corporations. Our operating strategy focuses on internal organizational structure and external partnerships that are crucial for supporting and strengthening the LGBT community of Eastern Pennsylvania. Through our grassroots fundraising model, we locate people and organizations who are willing and eager to use their passion for our mission to make a difference through their work, their dollar, or their time.

Below we have included funding sources of $10,000 or more in the year 2020.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. - $10,000 - Sponsorship

Health Promotion Council - $16,756.80 - Grant

PA Department of Health, Bureau of Family Health - $94,365.08 - Grant

Public Health Management Corporation - $104,100.00 - Grant

National Network of Libraries and Medicine - $54,667.77 - Grants

The Foundation of National Student Nurses Association - $20,000 - Grant

Air Products - $26,619.19 - Grant

American Lung Association - $90,000.00 - Grants

Lehigh Valley Community Foundation - $10,000 - Grant

United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley - $20,000 - Grants

PA Department of Community and Economic Development - $25,000 - Grant

Lehigh Valley Health Network - $50,000 - Grant

The Harry C. Trexler Trust - $25,000 - Grant

Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center has successfully operated and provided the critical services and programs for the LGBT community since opening The Center’s physical space in 2016. The real challenge right now is the lack of funds required to assist our community during a time of devastating losses and increased need. With funding from The Elevate Prize, we will be able to provide increased resources to help the community throughout Pennsylvania thrive during and heal from the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professional staff - $432,951.00

Employee benefits - $45,000.00

Payroll taxes - $35,000.00

Insurance - $16,000.00

Professional Services - $14,500.00

Telephone, Internet, Communication, Promotional - $8,000.00

Program Expenses - $187,189.00

Fundraising Expenses - $9,000.00

Facilities Expenses – Repairs/Maintenance - $12,000.00

Facilities Expenses – Utilities - $12,000.00

Facility Expenses - Security  - $1,200.00

Dues & Subscriptions - $2,500.00

Professional Development - $7,000.00

Board Development & Strategic Planning - $6,000.00

Printing, Copying, Postage - $5,000.00

Employee appreciation, volunteer appreciation & new hire expenses - $1,500.00

Supplies - $4,000.00

Bank & Credit Card Fees - $1,800.00

The Elevate Prize will do just that - it will help Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center elevate our efforts to develop, deliver, and analyze targeted health promotion campaigns in order to eliminate health barriers experienced by the LGBT community of Pennsylvania. As mentioned before, Federal U.S. funding is often hard to find and when it is available it can be very restrictive. Without the unrestricted award from The Elevate Prize, the LGBT community won’t have their health, and without our health we don’t have our lives.

For this project, in addition to current partners, I would like to partner with the Whitman Walker Health Clinic in Washington DC -- a leading-edge LGBT health agency -- to partner on a replicability model for one of our successful health promotion programs.