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State of the Organization

Report from the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Larry Richman
Given at the Evergreen Annual Conference, Saturday, September 13, 2003

Evergreen has been around for over 14 years now. Having begun as a grass-roots effort by eleven men in July 1989, it has grown into an international organization today providing referral, resources, and education to thousands of people in dozens of countries. The organization is led by a Board of Trustees, who was introduced in the meetings today. I hope you all know our Executive Director, David Pruden and our office manager Sharon Smith who handle the day-to-day work. David also oversees the work of the many volunteers who so freely donate their time to help in good causes. There is also an operations committee who plans events (such as this conference), creates publications, and helps organize and develop affiliate groups around the world.
The Board of Trustees asked me to provide this State of the Organization address. I believe accountability is important, and I also feel it’s important that all of you know what the organization is doing so we can support each other and accomplish the goals.

Priorities

Evergreen focuses on three major priorities–referral, resources, and education.

1. REFERRAL SERVICE

• We continue to build a network of therapists and affiliate support groups where we can refer people for help. Our computer database is the world’s largest listing of therapists, support groups, and other organizations that can help in the area of same-gender attraction.
• We have joined forces with PATH (Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality), a non-profit coalition of organizations. Working cooperatively with other organizations who have goals similar to ours, we hope to leverage our efforts and learn from each others’ successes.
• Thousands of people contact us by phone, e-mail, or through our Web site. E-mail messages are answered either in English or Spanish.
• We have 34 affiliate support groups for men, women, spouses, friends, and family, with another 18 in the process of forming. Most are in the United States, although a growing number are in other countries. We maintain contact with group leaders, assist developing groups, and provide guidelines and support materials. In the past year, I have personally met with Area Presidencies in Latin America and Europe to talk with them about encouraging support groups in various countries. I visited the support group in Spain and held a training meeting with Church leaders there. In a few months, some friends of Evergreen are planning to spend several weeks in Mexico to try to get support groups started there.

2. RESOURCES

• Each year, we provide over a thousand information packets and sell more than 1,500 books and other materials. We have some materials in 20 languages. If you have the skills to translate, review, or proofread other languages, please let us know.
• One of the strongest, growing resources we are focusing on is our Web site. www.Evergreeninternational.org gets more than 100,000 hits a year. We have just completed a major enhancement of the site which now has 200 separate sections (pages), including all the material from the previous site, all current Evergreen publications, many more testimonies and life stories, current and past events, content from old newsletters, links to many other resources, and a new section “The Way Out” with resources for men, women, families and friends, Church leaders, support groups, and therapists. All content has been edited, made current, and organized into user categories with cross-links so you can jump around to find the information you want. Since we really want to make this a good, comprehensive Web site, we invite you to review a test version of this new site before we post it to our official Web site address. Information sheets are in the foyer that give the address of the test site. We appreciate any time you can spend to review it and send us your suggestions.
• We publish a newsletter, The Journey, six times a year. We also publish other written and audiovisual materials. We are always looking for articles and ideas, as well as the help of qualified editors and graphic artists.
• We encourage independent writing in magazines and books, and have assisted individuals get several books published in both English and Spanish.
• Evergreen is the home of the Charles Socarides Memorial Library, a collection of nearly 500 books, articles, research papers, and audiovisual materials. We encourage students, professionals, and others to donate items and to use it for individual study and research.

3. EDUCATION

• Conferences, seminars, and workshops. For thirteen years, Evergreen has sponsored an annual conference in Salt Lake City with world-renowned speakers. These conferences are attended by about 500 men and women strugglers, therapists, church leaders, and family and friends. We also present seminars and workshops throughout the year, and regular firesides. Current events are posted on the Web site.
• Speakers’ Bureau. We also maintain a list of people who are available to speak at group meetings, workshops, or Church meetings.
• Training for Church leaders. Our Board of Trustees usually includes one or more emeritus General Authorities and we continue to build relationships with Area Presidencies and other Church leaders. Upon request, we provide training to hundreds of stake and ward leaders each year. If your ward or stake would like our assistance, please contact us.
• Training for Therapists. Evergreen offers training for professional counselors and organizations. We organize and promote education for counselors and therapists on gender-affirmative therapy. Our goal is to provide Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and professional development opportunities to build more clinical capacity.
• Public Relations. Evergreen attempts to expand public awareness of the importance of healthy gender identity and defend the right of individuals to make therapeutic choices in accordance with their freely-chosen value systems.

How to Help

Many people ask what they can do to help accomplish Evergreen’s mission. Some of the following ideas require very little time or money but can have a significant impact, especially if we all do our part.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

You don't have to be rich to help. This work relies on small and large donations from people just like you. You can make one-time donations or set up monthly contributions by direct deposit or through United Way. Many employers match the contributions made by employees. If you know of a company or foundation that may consider donating to Evergreen, please let us know.

Consider gifts of cash, real estate, life insurance, or office equipment. Rather than selling appreciated stocks or bonds (and paying capital gains tax), consider donating them as a tax deduction. Evergreen will be around for a long time, so consider leaving assets to the organization in your will.

Our goal is to establish an endowment fund of approximately two million dollars, the revenue from which would fund a substantial portion of Evergreen’s annual operating expenses. Then, with only modest efforts, we could raise the remaining funds needed each year. This would allow us to concentrate the majority of our time and efforts on the real work of educating, referring people, and providing resources.

We also would like to acquire a building as a permanent home for Evergreen operations. A group of volunteers is looking for a suitable building, as well considering a fundraising effort for the building.

Each year a CPA audits Evergreen's financial transactions and makes a report to the Board of Trustees. I assure you that procedures are in place to ensure that funds are handled appropriately and that expenses are approved and monitored by the Board of Trustees.

I want to publicly thank those who have contributed financially to support this work. Some have contributed in large amounts and others in smaller amounts but at great sacrifice. This month, many employers are conducting their annual campaign urging employees to contribute to the United Way. As you sign your pledge card, you will notice that you can designate an agency of your choice for your contributions. You can fill in Evergreen International and our address, and your contributions will be directed here.

MORAL SUPPORT

Talk positively about the process of change. If you are in a support group, support your group leaders. Bear testimony to each other and share your successes. If you are a therapist, family, or friend, don’t be shy to talk about Evergreen or that you know people who are struggling with homosexual problems. I often tell people in my ward and stake that I am involved with Evergreen. I’m proud of the work being done. I’m also proud of my many friends who have overcome significant challenges in their lives.

In the world today, we are bombarded with rhetoric that people are born gay and cannot change. Everyone needs to hear the truth: that with the proper motivation, it is possible to control homosexual behavior, live according to Christ's teachings, diminish the attractions, and enjoy the blessings of the Gospel.

VOLUNTEER

I've mentioned tonight some of the things Evergreen is involved in. It's a great burden for a few people, but manageable service when many people are involved. You help yourself when you help others. Please search your heart and if you have a few hours a month you could devote to this important work, contact the office to volunteer. There are also many day-to-day things we can do.
 

• Thank your local bookstore or library for carrying books about overcoming same-sex attraction. If they don’t carry them, ask them to.
• Write to television stations and newspapers to thank them for relaying appropriate information. When incorrect information is presented, respond with the truth.
• Organize grass-roots efforts to educate the community about same-sex attraction. Many stakes are planning leadership training meetings and Relief Society meetings on how to help those with same-sex attraction. Such a meeting was held with great success in my stake because I took the initiative to suggest it to my stake president. The same could be done in your stake if you have the courage to talk about it.

FAITH AND PRAYERS

Our faith and prayers have an amazing effect on how this work moves forward. Pray that we'll feel a sense of urgency where we need to move forward and that we'll have patience where we need to have patience. Since we consider the fundraising effort pivotal to our ability to move forward in important ways, we ask for your faith and prayers. We invite you to pray with us that potential contributors might understand the issues surrounding same-sex attraction and have a sense of compassion and urgency in the work. We believe that God is guiding this work and is intimately concerned about each one of us. As an organization, we commit to follow the direction of His prophet without reservation or exception.

I love you, brothers and sisters. Many of you carry tremendous burdens. Many of you have overcome significant challenges and I respect you for it. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that everyone in this room has the ability to live the law of morality that Christ taught. He will never give us a commandment we can't live. We can’t control the conflicts we face in this life, but we can choose how to respond to them. God expects all his children to live his law of morality. He taught it plainly and His modern prophets reaffirm it.

Let us remember the great counsel we have received in Evergreen conferences. In this conference two years ago, Sister Sharon Larsen of the Young Women General Presidency, said "When we remember who we really are, we will never feel far from God's infinite and eternal love for each of us.“ Three years ago, Elder Alexander B. Morrison reminded us that “God loves all of his children, all of the time. His very nature demands it. Whatever the trials and temptations of life, his love will never fail us. It is eternal and unchanging. Those who trust in God and seek to obey His commandments will find He will support and sustain them in every challenge.”

May we have the faith we need to overcome all challenges that come our way. And because of those challenges, may we become what our Father has created us to be. God lives! And He loves us.

Life is a journey that will take us back to our Father in Heaven. To illustrate this, may I close by relating a story told by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland? He relates an experience he had several years ago at the Salt Lake Airport watching a father rushing to embrace his returning missionary son and likens it to our reunion with our Father.

“On this particular day, I got off an airplane and walked into the terminal. It was immediately obvious that a missionary was coming home because the airport was astir with conspicuous-looking missionary friends and missionary relatives.

”I tried to pick out the immediate family members. There was a father who did not look particularly comfortable in an awkward-fitting and slightly out-of-fashion suit. He seemed to be a man of the soil, with a suntan and large, work-scarred hands. His white shirt was a little frayed and was probably never worn except on Sunday.

“There was a mother who was quite thin, looking as if she had worked very hard in her life. She had in her hand a handkerchief—and I think it must have been a linen handkerchief once but now it looked like tissue. It was nearly shredded from the anticipation only the mother of a returning missionary could know.

“There was a beautiful girl who—well, you know about girls and returning missionaries. She appeared to be on the verge of cardiac arrest. I thought that if the young man didn’t come soon, she would not make it without some oxygen.

“Two or three younger brothers and sisters were running around, largely oblivious to the scene that was unfolding.

”I walked past them all and started for the front of the terminal. Then I thought to myself, “This is one of the special human dramas in our lives. Stick around and enjoy it.” So I stopped. I slipped into the back of the crowd to wait and watch. The passengers were starting to come off the plane.

“I found myself starting to bet (Church-approved betting, of course) as to who would make the break first. I thought probably the girlfriend would want to most of all, but undoubtedly she was struggling with discretion. Two years is a long time, you know, and maybe one shouldn’t appear too assertive. Then a look at that handkerchief convinced me that the mother was probably the one. She obviously needed to hold something, so the child she had carried and nurtured and gone down into the valley of the shadow of death to deliver would be just what the doctor ordered. Or perhaps it would be the boisterous little brother—if he happened to look up long enough to know the plane was in.

“As I sat there weighing these options, I saw the missionary start to come down the stairs. I knew he was the one by the squeal of the crowd. He looked like Captain Moroni, clean and handsome and straight and tall. Undoubtedly he had known the sacrifice this mission had meant to his father and mother, and it had made him exactly the missionary he appeared to be. He had his hair trimmed for the trip home, his suit was worn but clean, his slightly tattered raincoat was still protecting him from the chill his mother had so often warned him about.

“He came to the bottom of the steps and started out across the apron toward our building and then, sure enough, somebody couldn’t take it any longer. It wasn’t the mother, and it wasn’t the girlfriend, and it wasn’t the rowdy little brother. That big, slightly awkward, quiet and bronzed giant of a man put an elbow into the ribcage of a flight attendant and ran, just simply ran, out onto that apron and swept his son into his arms.

“The oxygen summoned for the girlfriend could have now been better directed toward the missionary. He was probably 6'2" or so, but this big bear of a father grabbed him, took him clear off his feet, and held him for a long, long time. He just held him and said nothing. The boy dropped his briefcase, put both arms around his dad, and they just held each other very tightly. It seemed like all eternity stood still, and for a precious moment the Salt Lake City Airport was the center of the entire universe. It was as if all the world had gone silent out of respect for such a sacred moment.

“And then I thought of God the Eternal Father watching his boy go out to serve, to sacrifice when he didn’t have to do it, paying his own way, so to speak, costing everything he had saved all his life to give. At that precious moment, it was not too difficult to imagine that father speaking with some emotion to those who could hear, ‘This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And it was also possible to imagine that triumphant returning son, saying, ‘It is finished. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’

“Now, I don’t know what kind of seven-league boots a father uses to rush through the space of eternity. But even in my limited imagination I can see that reunion in the heavens. And I pray for one like it for you and for me. I pray for reconciliation and for forgiveness, for mercy, and for the Christian growth and Christian character we must develop if we are to enjoy such a moment fully.

“I stand all amazed that even for a man like me, full of egotism and transgression and intolerance and impatience, there is a chance. But if I’ve heard the “good news” correctly there is a chance—for me and for you and for everyone who is willing to keep hoping and to keep trying…” (“I Stand All Amazed,” Jeffrey R. Holland, excerpt from an address given to Salt Lake Temple workers, 24 November 1985. Ensign, Aug. 1986, p. 68.)

In the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.