Think about fundraising in the gay and lesbian community and you might visualize a drag queen running around a bar selling 50/50 tickets to raise money for HIV/AIDS research. That kind of one-on-one social experience has traditionally been when gay and lesbian people dig into their pockets to donate. But in the last decade, the picture has grown more complicated.

With increased social acceptance, gay and lesbian people are feeling less like an oppressed minority that must stick together. Whereas once the community seemed like a tightly knit family, the increased visibility of transsexual and transgendered people as well as people from varied ethnic backgrounds has made it much more diverse, but also less intimate. The plural, "communities," is the preferred term nowadays and the needs are also plural: youth support, anti-oppression education, artistic enterprises, workplace diversity and health concerns beyond sexually transmitted infections have been added to a mix traditionally dominated by political advocacy and HIV/AIDS.

Philip Wong, who became executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal in 2007, has helped guide queer Toronto through these dramatic societal shifts. Founded in 1980, the organization can be described as "The United Gay," soliciting donations which it then distributes as grants to LGBT groups and projects. Under Wong's tenure, the Appeal relaunched as Community One and helped create the LGBT Giving Network, which helps an array of charities and non-profits improve their fundraising ability through an annual conference, mentorship program and organizational development services.

Having taken the organization to the next level in its brand and structure, Wong gracefully stepped aside as executive director this month so the board could create a position dedicated to fundraising. But the queer not-for-profit sector has not seen the last of Wong, still chair of the LGBT Philanthropy Conference and who still uses the word "we" liberally.

Paul Gallant: How did you end up running queer not-for-profit organizations?

Philip Wong: I worked 10 years as a McDonald's manager, which taught me everything I needed to know about working with people who are wonderful and people who are problematic. I entered the environmental studies program at York University with the belief that I could change the world, but I quickly became disenchanted. I went to Ryerson for journalism, but by my second year, I wasn't sure if it was the right fit for me to improve society in an immediate and direct way. I started volunteering at the Gay Lesbian Bi Youth Line as a volunteer and quickly I realized I wasn't a front-line worker. One suicide call haunted me: Someone from a small town outside Windsor had taken a bunch of pills and as I was talking to her, she began to slur and slow down. We were able to follow the right protocols but it was hard for me. I still believed in the organization, though, which was reorganizing at the time. I worked on some of the special events and that's when I got my first taste for organizational management. I really enjoyed working behind the scenes to support a mission and a cause I fully believed in.

While you were executive director there, the Lesbian Gay Bi Youth Line added "trans" to its name and rebranded. How did the new name and logo make the organization more relevant to the young people who call the line and volunteer for it?

In the old Youth Line logo, there was a telephone cord and we recognized some of the people we serve might never have seen a telephone cord. We had to change to reflect their lives. There was also the challenge of all those letters the community uses -- lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgendered, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited -- that giant acronym we have, LGBTTIQQ2S. How could we balance the identity politics with the social marketing we needed to do? Trying to simplify things by just calling ourselves the Youth Line would have taken away from who we served. Some people said, "Just use the word 'queer.'" But there are people in our community, particularly the older demographic, for whom the word still has a lot of pain attached to it. So it's a big long name, but it certainly catches people's attention, tells you what we do and who we serve.

You arrived at the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal (LGCA) in 2007 and helped transform it into the Community One Foundation, but in that case you dropped acronym letters rather than adding them.

The board had done a survey and one of the things that came up was that the name needed to be changed because we serve more than just the gay and lesbian community. It was a huge challenge because the LGCA has such a rich history and people had such an emotional attachment it. With the LGBT Youth Line, based on the marketing budget we had, the name alone had to explain everything. But Community One is about a conversation. It's about sitting down with people to engage in a broader dialogue on philanthropy. From our offices above Woody's on Church Street, we could look out and see the diversity of different communities and wondered how they could be one community.

What do you think the rebranding achieved?

A lot of charities get into the day to day of survival and at the time we rebranded, one of the things that needed to change was not just surviving with the resources we had, but asking for more resources and moving forward with more confidence. Rebranding was a way of saying that we're a relevant organization, we're a confident organization, we know who we're serving and we know what effect we're having.

What disadvantages are faced by not-for-profits serving LGBT people?

Ten years ago, you'd go on a job-search site for non-profits and you wouldn't find any at queer charities. People were doing it out of their kitchens. You'd find jobs and money at AIDS services organizations, for sure, but those aren't wholly queer organizations. Maybe homophobia has something to do with it.

What about the myth of affluent gay men who have lots of disposable income to give to charity?

It's not a myth. There are a handful of well-known philanthropists who do give a lot. But people of all demographics are willing to give if they're given the opportunity to know and understand the charities. Queer charities need to be more strategic and take the best practices from the broader not-for-profit sector to understand our community and donors better.

Are there communities that you envy for their philanthropic tendencies?

People will often look to the Jewish community, where charitable giving is entrenched. In the United States, there's a great a culture of philanthropy, not just in the million-dollar gifts, but in the idea that people have a responsibility to support their community by engaging in it.

How can you create that attitude among Toronto queer people?

More awareness and co-operation. Last year I was talking with Maura (Lawless, executive director of The 519 Church Street Community Centre) and we thought, let's get the other queer EDs together. I found out later that that was the first time that executive directors of non-profit agencies had gotten together like that. That blew my mind. We've achieved so much in this community, but can you imagine how much we could have achieved if we took some time away from our own empire-building to work together? I don't know if there could be resource-sharing, a group campaign to promote volunteerism or an endowment fund, but we need to at least work together to see if there's any opportunity for collaboration.

It sounds like queer philanthropy is becoming more polished than the bar fundraisers we're used to.

Bake sales don't cut it anymore. Bar events are wonderful for PR and building morale. But in order to compete in the very competitive non-profit environment, we have to become more sophisticated. If you can spend four hours writing a grant application to a foundation that's beginning to be interested in queer issues, shouldn't we be building those relationships?

What can LGBT do-gooders teach the mainstream?

The people in our community who are making a difference are doing it for the love of it. They're a real inspiration.

Paul Gallant is a Toronto-based freelance writer who lives in the emerging Brockton Triangle neighbourhood.