Fast food corporation Chick-fil-A became notorious in 2012 for its financial ties to noted anti-LGBT hate groups. Reportedly, Chick-fil-A is now shifting funds away from national LGBT organizations to mainly internal projects that have less LGBT-focus:
Separate filings for a newly-established foundation, the Chick-fil-A Foundation, show the group has ceased all funding to some of the more controversial and extremist groups it has funded in the past. From 2010-2011, Chick-fil-A came under fire for giving as much as $3.6 million in support to groups like the Marriage & Family Foundation, the National Christian Foundation, Family Research Council and Exodus International— groups with specifically-stated anti-LGBT political and social agendas. The Family Research Council had also been named an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Those groups are no longer supported by the new Chick-fil-A Foundation or WinShape, holding true to a statement released by Chick-fil-A last January...
Here's where the money's going now:
Federal tax filings for 2012 for Chick-fil-A’s primary corporate foundation, the WinShape Foundation, show the group has shifted its focus to its own programs — marriage retreats, camps and other services, as well as a scholarship fund at Berry College in Georgia and Lars WinShape, a home for needy children in Brazil. . .
The new foundation shows grants to groups like Habitat for Humanity, the United Negro Scholarship Fund and two groups that work with homeless and at-risk youth in Atlanta. Only one arguably anti-LGBT group remains, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which holds some anti-LGBT leadership policies and religious doctrines. But, that group received just $25,390 in 2012, down from nearly a half-million dollars in funds it received in 2010.
Shane Windmeyer, an advocate with Campus Pride who has worked closely with Chick-fil-A' Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathy, commented to qnotes on the development in funding:
“I still wouldn’t call Chick-fil-A a gay-friendly company, but I would say that our dialogues and conversation that Campus Pride has had has been a positive one. There is some, albeit small, progress there,” Windmeyer tells qnotes. . .
“It’s not always about winning or losing,” Windmeyer said. “It’s about having tough conversations we need to have with people who disagree with us but doing so in a way that creates understanding and creates care for each other.”
He added, “It’s my purpose to role model that you can come together and talk to someone with opposite views and you don’t have to have opposing voices. You can sit down and have conversations. One can decide to boycott, but as long as that person is willing to do work heading toward common ground, then I don’t want to shut off the dialogue.”