About NEAT
To find out more about our work, choose a Program above. This is the website for NEAT and the NEAT Education Fund (NEATEF) - learn more about the two components of NEAT here.
Vision & Mission
The National Equality Action Team (NEAT) is the home for harnessing and building the unique power of everyday people and partners anywhere, to make extraordinary change together, for LGBTQ+ Justice everywhere. We do this through intersectional, grassroots, collective action and education.
We're Doing Something Different
NEAT is building on Marriage Equality USA’s (MEUSA) 20 years of experience in grassroots, collective action and education, which empowered lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people and their allies to win marriage equality. Today, we partner with diverse issue leaders to educate the community beyond matters that only affect LGBTQ+ people (like non-discrimination), to include issues that also affect them (like reproductive rights), often disproportionately. We create and support opportunities for collective action on these issues so that through NEAT, people and organizations everywhere are working together to call from home, knock on doors, receive training, and share experiences without traditional resource or geography limitations. At NEAT, we empower everyday people and partners anywhere, to make extraordinary change together, for LGBTQ+ Justice everywhere. And with your help, we're just getting started.
A Unique Role
LGBTQ+ people have always known injustice, but not because of the sexual orientation or gender. They are also women, people of color, workers, immigrants, living with HIV/AIDS, religious minorities and more. LGBTQ+ people stand at a unique intersection of multiple identities giving them, their allies and community partners a unique perspective and responsibility.
Big “J” Justice
This unique role means an attack on any of these identities is an attack on all LGBTQ+ people. Therefore NEAT’s fight cannot be limited to issues that only affect LGBTQ+ people, but must include issues that also affect them - often disproportionately. We call this Big “J” Justice, because we know ours is “one struggle, one fight.”
Servant Leadership, Collective Action
NEAT leads by always partnering in support of local or issue-expert organizations, to activate existing but often under-utilized volunteer and grassroots networks to take bold and effective collective action for Justice.
Empower Everywhere; Duplicate Nowhere
By building our programs around remote access, NEAT can activate hard to reach suburban and rural volunteers and leverage the overwhelming number in urban centers to support campaigns in communities where resources are often most needed. We are laser-focused on where the gaps in our movement are and put our energy there. Instead of duplicating the efforts of others, we build strong partnerships with them and leverage those strengths.
The Halo Effect
NEAT leaves every campaign better than we find it so your donations and support always go farther. For example, by training and regularly engaging our partners’ volunteers to phone bank, that partner now has a cadre of trained workers on standby for use on their own progressive campaigns whether NEAT is involved or not.
LGBTQ+ people have always known injustice, but not because of the sexual orientation or gender. They are also women, people of color, workers, immigrants, living with HIV/AIDS, religious minorities and more. LGBTQ+ people stand at a unique intersection of multiple identities giving them, their allies and community partners a unique perspective and responsibility.
Big “J” Justice
This unique role means an attack on any of these identities is an attack on all LGBTQ+ people. Therefore NEAT’s fight cannot be limited to issues that only affect LGBTQ+ people, but must include issues that also affect them - often disproportionately. We call this Big “J” Justice, because we know ours is “one struggle, one fight.”
Servant Leadership, Collective Action
NEAT leads by always partnering in support of local or issue-expert organizations, to activate existing but often under-utilized volunteer and grassroots networks to take bold and effective collective action for Justice.
Empower Everywhere; Duplicate Nowhere
By building our programs around remote access, NEAT can activate hard to reach suburban and rural volunteers and leverage the overwhelming number in urban centers to support campaigns in communities where resources are often most needed. We are laser-focused on where the gaps in our movement are and put our energy there. Instead of duplicating the efforts of others, we build strong partnerships with them and leverage those strengths.
The Halo Effect
NEAT leaves every campaign better than we find it so your donations and support always go farther. For example, by training and regularly engaging our partners’ volunteers to phone bank, that partner now has a cadre of trained workers on standby for use on their own progressive campaigns whether NEAT is involved or not.
We've Been Making A Difference Since 2012
- Provided critical (sometimes the only) field support to over 25 campaigns nationwide including 14 winning marriage campaigns, and 4 successful non-discrimination campaigns (Georgia, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Florida).
- Managed 2000+ volunteer shifts totaling 4000+ hours. Volunteers held 20,000+ conversations leading to 7,000+ transfer messages or commitments to elected officials.
- Built a grassroots network of 1,000 organizers to support 5 national and global initiatives resulting in 1500+ actions in response to major LGBTQ events including the Pulse Orlando shooting, and 2 major rallies at the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Hosted 17 tele-Town Halls providing facts, analysis and guidance related to major LGBTQ events for 4000+ LGBTQ organizations, community leaders and members.
- Built a compact among 30 organizations to provide monthly volunteers to NEAT actions including HRC, Equality Federation, Freedom for All Americans, Equality Texas, and Equality Florida.
See all of NEAT's previous campaigns.
Learn more about the History of NEAT.
