Follow the leaders: NGLTF loses its seventh executive director in 11 years: so what's going wrong in Washington? (Community).

Lorri Jean once worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she coordinated earthquake relief programs. But even that background could not have prepared her for her tumultuous two-year stint as executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, where she faced huge budget shortfalls, staff layoffs and resignations, a hostile White Housel and half a dozen antigay ballot measures.

"It was a difficult couple of years, to be sure," says Jean, the group's sixth executive since 1992, after announcing she would leave the post in May. "But it was also exhilarating. It was no secret we faced some pretty dire problems, especially financially, when I was brought in. Pulling the organization out of deep water was not easy."

Jean will return to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, which she led before moving to the Washington, D.C.-based task force. There she will face more tremors but a far more tranquil political environment. "It's really nice to be going home," she says. "I won't miss all the travel. But I can look back at my time at the task force and say that I left it in a very solid position."

Indeed, Jean's tenure was not without accomplishments. The group is expected to have a balanced $5 million budget by the end of the year, nearly one third more than when she arrived. The infusion of cash has allowed the 30-year-old organization to rededicate itself to grassroots activism. In the past year alone, NGLTF helped defeat six antigay ballot measures from Oregon to Miami.

But it is far less clear that Jean was able to solve the structural problems that have bedeviled NGLTF for more than a decade. Since Urvashi Vald's departure as executive director in 1992, the top office has had a revolving door, with six people holding the job. As a result, the group's mission has veered from federal lobbying to organizing grassroots activists to research and policy making--and it has retained only its longtime commitment to progressive politics. Meanwhile, NGLTF's more centrist counterpart, the Human Rights Campaign, has had only two executive directors since 1992--Tim McFeeley and Elizabeth Birch, who will leave her post at the end of this year.

"It's funny, [NGLTF] has gotten a lot of flak for having a string of women and radical feminists in the top job," says McFeeley, who also was political director at the task force in 2000 and 2001. "But I think the group has had a lot of very talented leaders, including Lorri. The problem is really the board. NGLTF has lacked the kind of patient, supportive board that executive directors require to flourish."

Jean says that's something she's really focused on as executive director. "I feel the board I've left and the senior staff positions are the best we've been in a long, long time. I feel that the group's in a good position now."

And according to Margaret Burd, the current cochalr and a seven-year member of NGLTF's board, Jean is indeed leaving the group in a good position. "In the two years that she has been at the helm, we not only have recovered from that instability but have positioned the organization to play an increasingly vital and effective role in the GLBT community for years to come," she says.

That's not to say that the next executive director won't face controversy. The task force has always served as home to the gay rights movement's most committed left-wing activists--a constituency that is highly visible at NGLTF's annual Creating Change conferences. "Every year there is some huge blowup," McFeeley says. "One year it will be about transgender inclusion. The next year it will be gay youth. There's a lot of screaming and self-righteousness, and this puts any executive director under a lot of stress."

At the conference last fall, Jean says she was pressed to oppose military action in Iraq. "It was something we were going to do," she explains. "But it was part of a process, and everybody wanted it now. It was articulated in a personally disrespectful manner, which I've tried to indicate is just not OK anymore. But on the other hand, Creating Change is a place where a lot of people feel safe to express their views.

"The pressure," Jean adds, "just kind of comes with the territory."

Resigning women

Seven executive directors have resigned from NGLTF since 1992. The problem, according to the group's former political director Tim McFeeley, is the board of directors. "NGLTF has lacked the kind of patient, supportive board that executive directors need to flourish," he says. Not pictured: Peri Jude Radecic (1993-1994)