Welcoming Annie Van Avery
We are so pleased to announce that Annie Van Avery has accepted the position of Executive Director for the organization and will begin leading the organization as of February 25, 2013. Annie is a COLAGEr herself and has served as a board member for the organization since July 2012. She joins us from Photo Center NW, where she previously served as Executive Director and led the organization to significant growth and great success.
Annie has a fifteen-year history in nonprofit leadership including two previous roles as an Executive Director. She has shown a strong commitment to social justice, youth outreach, and advocacy work. Annie grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has experience with community outreach work in cities on both coasts as well as rural communities. She has a gay father, a lesbian mother who has celebrated 15 years with her partner, and is the mother of two daughters, ages one and thirteen. Annie currently lives in Seattle, Washington where she has spent the past five years leading an organizational transition from crisis to sustainability while volunteering to help support organizations that provide a lifeline to youth in crisis.
Reflecting on a Year of Growth
We are deeply grateful for the incredible work of Barbara Green, our Interim Executive Director, over the past year. It was undoubtedly a rebuilding year, and Barbara skillfully led the organization as we transitioned from a tough financial and operational outlook to our current strong standing. Barbara’s managerial expertise, her personal connection and commitment to our mission, as well as her vast experience helping organizations deal with trying circumstances have made all the difference for this organization. She has helped us develop critically needed capacity on the Board and Staff while also dramatically improving the internal operations of the organization. Barbara has led COLAGE through some difficult times and we now find ourselves a significantly revitalized organization.
More broadly, over the past year we have recruited talented, new board members who have developed an ambitious and focused Strategic Plan for 2013 that will lead the organization into a new era. (The plan will be made public later this month on our website and through social media-stay tuned.) We have brought on a talented new Program Director (Robin Marquis) who has helped us re-engage and empower our chapters, with seven new chapters brought online just over the past few months. We are on track for another successful Family Week this summer as we build on a promising and growing partnership with the Family Equality Council (FEC). We believe our progress, as a reinvigorated organization is nascent and strong because of all these positive developments.
A Word from Annie Van Avery, Incoming Executive Director
“As we look towards our future we see COLAGE serving as a key organization in the LGBTQ family movement. For over twenty years we have supported youth in our families; we are ready to evolve to the needs of our communities to provide continued advocacy over the next twenty years. This landscape is changing rapidly for some of our communities, with marriage equality and new anti-discrimination laws for our parents and anti-bullying initiatives in our schools; while for others the struggle for basic rights and a safe space to come out about a parent’s orientation continues. COLAGE is unique in that it serves all of our communities from New York City to Sacramento, Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between. Key to this work will be our local chapters and partners who best understand the needs of COLAGErs in their regions. We are focused on how we can provide a support structure for the diverse communities that we serve, in partnership with our youth leaders who are the heart of our mission.”
In Closing
The Board and Staff are extremely excited about the promise that this new year holds for us and our community. We commit to building on the success and growth of this past year while constantly improving upon the ways that we serve the over 2 million youth with LGBTQ parents across the United States. Please be on the lookout for our upcoming 2013 Strategic Plan announcement in the coming weeks and more good news from COLAGE.
Sincerely,
Paul Perry
Board Chair
COLAGE