National Youth Advocacy Coalition

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The National Youth Advocacy Coalition, or NYAC, is the largest national organization fighting for the rights and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.

The DC-based organization was started as a project of the Hetrick-Martin Institute and was fiscally sponsored by HMI for the first several years of its existence. NYAC was incorporated as a Minnesota non-profit corporation in 1998.

Today, NYAC has approximately eight full-time staff and a $1 million budget. Much of its work centers on both social justice advocacy work and HIV/STI prevention and education work, as well as other health work, much of which is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Always seeking to expand its work, NYAC has had to put effort into getting individual donors and foundations engaged in its work. For much of the past ten years, NYAC has put on a National Youth Summit in DC; the conference has been attended by as much as 600 youth.

NYAC's Executive Director is Craig Bowman.

NYAC's Board of Directors includes: Aaron Chandler (of Seattle, WA); Caeden Dempsey (of Washington, DC); Derek Dorn (of Washington, DC); Gregory "Goyo" Casajuana (of Acworth, GA); Harper Seldin (of Charlotte, NC); Jessica Rivera (of Bronx, NY); Jesus Chapa-Malacara (of Brooklyn, NY); Joshua Heim (of Seattle, WA); Kelly Spring (of Washington, DC); Laura Hart (of College Park, VA); Maya Marcel-Keyes (of Chicago, IL); Oscar Raul Lopez (of New York, NY); Russ Finkelstein (of Portland, OR); and Tiffany Neill (of Silver Spring, MD).