The Trevor Project Literally Saves Thousands of LGBTQ+ Youth

[TW: This article discusses LGBTQ+ harassment and mentions suicide. If you're struggling with mental illness or having suicidal thoughts, please call The Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678.] Even though he now leads the organization as its CEO and executive director, Amit Paley still remembers his early days with The Trevor Project, starting out as one of its volunteer counselors in 2011. And from that time, one phone call in particular stays with him. It came in over the crisis line from a young person in a rural, conservative part of middle America. (To protect privacy, Paley did not share identifying details.) The caller had just come out of the closet to their father, and things had not gone well. The parent had turned hostile and, just before storming out of the house, gave his child a directive. “I’ve left the gun cabinet unlocked,” the father said. “I’m leaving the house right now. You know what the right thing is to do.” Fortunately, the young person did not pick up a gun. They picked up the phone instead. And on the other end of the line, they found Paley. Reaching into his crisis training, Paley calmed the kid down, reassured them that their life was valid and important, then connected the caller with resources that got them safely out of the father’s house. Yet, even though that call counted as a win, it left Paley deeply shaken. “I remember being so saddened and so horrified that a father could treat their child in that way—treat another human being in that way,” Paley says now. “And I remember being so inspired by the resilience of this young person in that moment. No person should ever be put in that situation.” Because of The Trevor Project—Adweek’s Brand Save honoree for 2021—those who are put in that situation have, at least, a safe a way out of it. Beyond the call Like any number of LGBTQ+ nonprofits, The Trevor Project offers a variety of social services and is a powerful advocate in the political arena. The group’s most critical element, however, is its work in crisis intervention—the 24/7 Trevor Lifeline, TrevorText and TrevorChat services that are, in some cases, the only thing that keeps a young person on the brink from taking matters to the point of no return. At a time when jargon clogs corporate mission statements to the point of incoherence, The Trevor Project keeps its own painfully simple: “To end suicide among LGBTQ youth.” 'Our ultimate goal would be that no one would need to reach out,' says CEO Amit Paley. 'We know that that, unfortunately, is not the world right now.' According to the group’s most recent annual report, The Trevor Project’s 786 counselors in 2020 fielded over 150,000 “crisis contacts”—calls for help via phone, text and chat. Nearly half of those calls came from people under 18, and over a third were from people of color. Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofit organizations by accountability, transparency and, importantly, the percentage of donated funds that actually end up reaching the intended beneficiaries, gives The Trevor Project a score of 99.41 out of 100—a four-star rating, which equates to “exceptional.” What’s less publicized, however, is The Trevor Project’s considerable roster of brand partners—relationships that not only keep the project’s work funded but assist the private sector with a task that often proves challenging: demonstrating to the LGBTQ+ community that their corporate hearts are in the right place. In the past decade or so, a veritable who’s who of household-name brands and blue-chip titans—Google, YouTube, Macy’s, Procter & Gamble, Harry’s and Abercrombie & Fitch among them—have all pledged public support for The Trevor Project. In the process, they’ve helped to disseminate Trevor’s messaging, blending it with some of their own. A financial supporter for the past decade, Macy’s, for example, has recently aired public-service announcements with The Trevor Project, in addition to posting signage with the group’s hotline throughout its stores. Macy’s senior director of giving and volunteerism Sam Harrison Di Scipio says that even if just one youth on the edge learns about The Trevor Project through the stores, the entire effort will have been worth it. But the partnership also benefits Macy’s as a brand. “It really helps us to signal our values,” Di Scipio says. “We really do support creating a culture of inclusion and belonging for all of our customers, colleagues and communities. This is really a way of being able to kind of walk the walk with that.” Young, queer and living in 2021 To some, it may come as a surprise that there’s a need for a group like The Trevor Project. After all, the LGBTQ+ community enjoys the kind of mainstream status that seemed impossible just a generation ago. Marriage equality is the law of the land. Hit shows feature gay characters and plots. This year alone saw Americans from historically LGBTQ+-intolerant territory come out of the closet, including country star TJ Osborne and NFL player Carl Nassib (who donated $100,000 to The Trevor Project on the day of his announcement via Instagram). For Paley, developments like these offer a glimpse of a day he dreams about—the day when there will be no use for The Trevor Project at all. “Our ultimate goal would be that no one would need to reach out,” he says. “We know that that, unfortunately, is not the world right now.” It isn’t the world right now. According to a 2018 study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, 40% of high school students who identify as LGBTQ+ have seriously considered suicide and are 3.5 times more likely to attempt it. The Trevor Project’s own data estimates that at least one LGBTQ+ young person in America attempts suicide every 45 seconds. Before The Trevor Project began, young people in crisis could call the government-funded National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, assuming they had the wherewithal to look up the phone number. But research shows that all of us tend to respond more positively to others who are like us, those we feel can better understand us. And a crisis resource sensitive to the needs of the LGBTQ+ community—and its youth, specifically—would come about only after the debut of a movie called “Trevor.” From movie to movement “Trevor” was a 1994 short film directed by Peggy Rajski and produced by Randy Stone. Set in 1981, the 23-minute movie follows the life of a boy named Trevor who loves Diana Ross and is pretty sure he’s gay. Ignored by his parents and bullied by his classmates, Trevor overdoses on pills. When the suicide attempt fails, he’s befriended in the hospital by a male nurse whose compassion delivers an improbable happy ending. In 1998, three years after “Trevor” won an Oscar, Stone convinced HBO to air it, together with an introduction by Ellen DeGeneres, who herself had recently come out of the closet. It all felt like progress, but there was a problem. “The producers realized all these kids across the country who are like Trevor are going to see this film [and wanted to] make sure that, at the end, [they] put a resource for them to reach out to if [viewers] need help,” Paley says. “And they quickly realized that there was no national organization providing suicide prevention and crisis intervention services for LGBTQ young people.” Together with the film's screenwriter, Celeste Lecesne, Rajski hastily cobbled the funding together and had a hotline ready just before the HBO broadcast. “The phone started ringing off the hook,” Paley recalls. “It has not stopped.” In the 1994 movie ‘Trevor’ (1), the title character figures out that he’s gay and attempts suicide, but survives and finds support and friendship from a male nurse he meets in the hospital (2). Tolerance in a divided America While being gay or bi or transgender is arguably easier today than it was in 1998, America is still replete with towns, neighborhoods and households where it might as well be 1950. Gallup survey data from earlier this year shows that nearly one in five Americans still believe that gay and lesbian relationships between consenting adults should be illegal. Globally, according to a 2016 study by the Switzerland-based International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, two-thirds of parents admitted they’d be upset if their child told them they were in love with someone of the same gender. In fact, given the dramatic political polarization that now characterizes America’s national life, an argument can be made that coming out is tougher now—at least for some kids—than it’s been in a generation. “In the 24-hour period after the 2016 presidential election, our call volume more than doubled,” Paley relates. “The really hateful rhetoric has an impact. Young people really do listen to what people are saying. Those words really do matter.” Real-world consequences Recent history has offered few better examples of just how much words matter than the case of an 18-year-old Rutgers University student named Tyler Clementi. In 2010, Clementi’s roommate secretly recorded an encounter that the gay undergraduate had with another young man in his dormitory room—and then streamed it online. Lacking support and seeing himself ridiculed on Twitter, Clementi took himself to the George Washington Bridge and slipped over the side. That tragedy prompted Clementi’s mother, Jane, to start the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which works to end bullying (both online and off) of young LGBTQ+ people. As an advocate for a vulnerable population, Jane Clementi both sees and admires the work that The Trevor Project does. “They’ve had a huge impact on supporting LGBT youth in the crisis situation,” she tells Adweek, pointing out that while “crisis work is really important, if we could do more preventative work, hopefully less people would be at that crisis point.” Clementi especially lauds Paley’s efforts in championing TrevorSpace, a social-networking resource that allows LGBTQ+ youth to find a supportive community online, where so many of them “live” already. The online community, she adds, “can be a good, safe world, and that’s what we want it to be. Unfortunately, it was not that way for Tyler.” Liz Owen, communications director for PFLAG, which bills itself as the largest and oldest organization for “LGBTQ+ people, their parents and families, and allies,” is another admirer of The Trevor Project. The group’s work, she points out, stems in great part from a lack of acceptance from families. Research from San Francisco State University found that a LGBTQ+ youth who finds the support of just one parent or trusted adult in that person’s life cuts their risk of suicide and self-harm in half. “We need to make sure that youth have the support and affirmation they need to live fully and authentically so that they never hit a crisis point,” Owen says. “But crisis comes in many forms, and it’s good to know that Trevor is there, doing the hard and necessary work.” When he came out as gay, NFL lineman Carl Nassib (1) donated $100,000 to The Trevor Project to help “do my part to cultivate a culture that’s accepting.” Trevor’s counselors (2) are often the only voice of acceptance young LGBTQ+ people have. While individual donations like Nassib’s constitute close to half of Trevor’s support, 35% comes from corporate brands like Macy’s, which produced a recent PSA with actor Ben Platt (3). Corporate coffers The hard and necessary work costs money, of course. The project's lifesaving work cost $35 million to do in 2020. And in recent years, a troop of leading brands have marched in, cash in hand, to support Trevor’s mission. Macy’s, for instance, has given over $3.3 million in the past three years alone. Ask these companies why they support the organization, and you will hear the usual boilerplate about corporate purpose and values, phraseology that’s been bandied about for years now. But private-sector support of work like that of The Trevor Project has also assumed a place of heightened importance, even urgency, in recent years. The truth is that, in a symbiosis uniquely suited to the times, The Trevor Project helps its brand sponsors with their image as much as those sponsors help Trevor with money. Jeffrey R. Boles, associate professor and chair of legal studies at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, explains that there's an emergent synergism between public and private sectors today that's fast becoming a kind of standard. "Up until recently, most corporations were driven with the single goal to maximize profits," he says. "And that was essentially at the heart of every action or initiative they pursued." "By and large, companies now are guided by a triple bottom line concept—a notion that [they] should commit to measuring their social and environmental impacts alongside their profits," Boles continues. "It's captured in the 'people, planet, profits,' adage. So The Trevor Project fits nicely within that larger movement." One reason for that shift is the $600 billion annual spending power of the millennial generation. When millennials first began flexing their shopping muscles about a decade ago, marketers became increasingly aware that their brands’ stances on social issues were under scrutiny. Today, that pressure is greater than ever. Just ask Abercrombie & Fitch. Long known for its beefcake-boy models and a cool-kids-only reputation, A&F undertook major reforms in the wake of a disastrous 2006 interview CEO Mike Jeffries gave to Salon in which he essentially said that the outcasts and underdogs of the world need not shop there: “We go after the cool kids,” Jeffries said. “We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends.” Today, a wholly reimagined A&F is an inclusive label that goes after everyone. So, in its decade-long support of The Trevor Project, A&F is doing more than simply finding a charity to underwrite; it’s making clear to shoppers that it takes inclusion seriously. “Millennials were the first generation to truly start to really voice, with their dollars, for brands that have the same values that they believe in,” A&F’s svp, global head of marketing, Carey Collins Krug, told Adweek. “Gen Z is just taking that to another level—and we see that. They are very savvy customers. They no longer take anything at face value. So, unless you are authentically living what you say you're doing, you'll get called out for it." According to recently published research, she's right. For example, a 2018 survey from social-impact consultancy DoSomething Strategic found that 40% of consumers aged 13-25 won't spend their money on a brand that doesn't share their personal values. A BBMG survey conducted earlier this year showed that Gen Z, by a five-to-one margin, "does not trust business to act in the best interests of society." The common cause Gillian Oakenfull, professor and faculty director of diversity and inclusion at Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, suggests that brands supporting The Trevor Project also benefit from a halo effect that doesn’t always come with other charities. A hyper-conservative consumer might not support marriage equality, for instance, but it’s hard not to get behind a nonprofit that saves kids’ lives. “This is an organization that is targeted at Gen Z,” she says. “And I think everybody understands. There's a resonance about the idea that these are kids, these are teens. This is something that everybody can empathize with.” Or most everybody. The intolerance and fury driving that young caller's father to encourage his gay child to shoot themself is one reason that long-ago crisis call lingers in Paley’s mind. So does the memory of what Paley did next. “I told [them], ‘There may be people in your life who will not accept you, but I need you to know that there are many, many people in this world who will not only accept you for being who you are, but who will celebrate you for being who you are,” Paley remembers. “And I want you to know that I am one of those people.’”

Brand Genius

How The Trevor Project Literally Saves Thousands of LGBTQ+ Youth, Year After Year

Adweek's 2021 Brand Save honoree has a singular mission, and a growing roster of corporate brands pledging to keep it funded

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara