The LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization GLAAD has been accused by a New York Times report of spending “lavish” amounts on the salary, first-class travel, luxury hotels, expensive chauferred car services, and a $20,000 home office of its chief executive Sarah Kate Ellis. The publication alleged that the spending may have violated IRS rules and the organization’s own policies which ask employees to try to keep costs to a minimum.
GLAAD — which has about 60 employees and an annual budget of roughly $30 million — has called the report “grossly misleading” and said that its externally-audited economic reports reflect the integrity and transparency of the organization’s financial dealings (in compliance with IRS rules and its internal spending policies). GLAAD also said the article’s writer, Emily Steel, had previously signed an open letter criticizing GLAAD for repeatedly speaking out against the Times’ problematic coverage of transgender people.
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The Times report — based on “dozens of GLAAD expense reports and accompanying receipts from January 2022 through June 2023, as well as employment agreements, tax filings, audit reports, other financial documents and internal communications” — claimed that Ellis’ pay can reach anywhere from $700,000 to $1.3 million a year, “a sum that would far exceed what her peers at many similarly sized organizations have earned,” Steel wrote.
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In a statement to LGBTQ Nation, a GLAAD’s chief communications officer Rich Ferraro said, “It is an arbitrary and sensational hypothetical to say a [$1 million] salary is even possible to achieve.” He said that Ellis would need to raise $60 to $90 million in new annual funding in order to receive that amount. According to GLAAD’s most recent IRS Form 990 filing, Ellis made $603,285 in salary and additional compensation in 2022, The Advocate reported.
The Times said that — when attending the January 2023 World Economic Forum in Switzerland — Ellis took a first-class flight, a chauffeured Mercedes car, a day of skiing, and had a week-long stay in a seven-bedroom chalet that cost GLAAD nearly half a million dollars. Ferraro said the trip was funded through a donation from the Ariadne Getty Foundation to help raise LGBTQ+ visibility at the event. At it, Ellis hosted discussions about HIV, inclusive business practices, and anti-queer international laws with key global business leaders, non-governmental organizations, and other forum attendees.
The chalet hosted some of these discussions and provided lodging for GLAAD staff members, staff from other organizations, and individual activists from Kenya and Uganda — two African countries that have recently passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws — Ferraro added.
He also said GLAAD began using private car rentals (at the most frugal or reduced rates) as part of its enhanced security procedures amid increased violent threats against GLAAD employees and their CEO, as advised by the security firm ETS. Ferraro also said that Ellis accidentally charged GLAAD for her day of skiing but later reimbursed the organization for its costs.
The Times article mentioned that Ellis charged around $30,000 to rent a home, cottage, and hotel room in Provincetown, Massachusetts during summer 2023. Ferraro said the costs were valid business expenses as sites for GLAAD’s summer meetings. Ellis also works from the area for the remainder of the season to meet with movement leaders and raise millions from potential donors (who are either local or visiting from the coasts) “during a traditionally slow time of year for fund-raising.”
Ellis also spent at least $18,000 renovating the top floor of her Long Island house on with “everything from cotton-ball-colored paint and ivory pillows to a sectional sofa and chandelier,” the Times wrote. Ferraro said that the money renovated Ellis’ attic — which had previously been used for storage — into a home office and venue for hosting virtual GLAAD staff and donor events, to tape organizational videos, and to conduct over 80 on-camera interviews throughout 2022.
GLAAD also spent over $60,000 on airfare and hotels when Ellis attended the 2023 Cannes Lions advertising industry festival on the French Riviera. GLAAD said the expenses helped Ellis and three GLAAD employees hold over 50 festival events with key advertising, marketing, and business leaders and to launch GLAAD’s first annual Advertising Visibility Index about LGBTQ+ representation in advertising.
These efforts were part of “a last-minute crisis decision” by GLAAD, Ferraro said, to convince business leaders to continue partnering with the queer community as other businesses rolled back their partnerships in response to right-wing boycotts and attacks.
Ellis began heading GLAAD in 2014, and increased its fundraising efforts through appearances on TV and at high-profile events — like the annual Emmy Awards — and by soliciting donations from large companies like Netflix, Google, and Disney. By 2022, she quintupled GLAAD’s revenue to around $19 million from new donors and programs, the Times noted.
In a statement to LGBTQ Nation, GLAAD said the Times author, Emily Steel, signed a 2023 open letter criticizing GLAAD for repeatedly speaking against her publication’s coverage of transgender people, which GLAAD deemed as biased, inaccurate, and regularly devoid of trans voices — a criticism repeated by the watchdog group Media Matters. The Times focused its reporting instead on controversies questioning the legitimacy of trans identities and gender-affirming care, according to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting’s May 2023 study.
GLAAD rented a billboard truck to park outside the Times’s offices eight times and published over a dozen posts critical of the Times’ coverage on its website and social media. However, GLAAD said the Times‘ leadership continues to ignore GLAAD’s main request: to sit down with transgender leaders.
Charlie Stadtlander, managing director of external communications at the Times, defended Steel’s article on GLAAD, calling it “fair, accurate and based on objective information” contained in GLAAD’s own documents. He also said his publication has reported “fully and fairly on transgender topics ranging from challenges and prejudice faced by the community to the fight for expanding rights and freedoms to open debates about care.”
A GLAAD spokesperson told LGBTQ Nation, “It is disappointing but not surprising, especially at a time when LGBTQ violence and anti-LGBTQ legislation are growing, that the Times committed significant resources to spin a negative story. The tabloid-esque article excludes much of our critical advocacy work and grossly mischaracterizes the organization, which consistently garners top marks from charity rating organizations. The Times should spend more time and resources bringing its coverage of transgender people up to par.”
GLAAD board chair Liz Jenkins wrote, “GLAAD’s mission of accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community has never been more important. The Board and I stand firmly behind Sarah Kate Ellis, with respect and appreciation for how she and her team are leading the movement at a time when our community is under attack. We have full confidence that they’re doing so with integrity, and that they share the Board’s commitment to irrefutably strong governance and business practices.”
In a statement, Ellis said, “Politicians, extremists, and even mainstream media outlets are undermining our efforts for equality and pushing dangerous narratives about our community…. We won’t stop fighting for acceptance and working as hard as we can, every day, to stand up for our community.”
