The Palm Center

Background

The Palm Center was a left-of-center advocacy group that used research, coordination with retired veterans, and social-science scholarship to assist LGBT service members within the U.S. Following its closure, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen stated “Its research and policy guidance were invaluable in showing that inclusive service was not complicated and would not harm readiness. The Palm Center reframed the national conversation.”  ^{3  4  2}

The Center received funding through left-of-center organizations, such as the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. Prior to the closure of the Palm Center in 2022, executive director Aaron Belkin founded left-of-center judicial advocacy group Take Back the Court in 2018. The Center would later donate to the group in 2020. ^{5  6  2  3  7}

History

Aaron Belkin founded the Palm Center in 1998 at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where it operated as the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military. The organization was renamed in 2006 following a $1 million endowment gift from the Michael D. Palm Foundation, honoring philanthropist Michael D. Palm, who died in 1998. Belkin worked as an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara from 1998 to 2009 before joining the political science faculty at San Francisco State University. The Palm Center subsequently operated as an independent organization based in San Francisco. The organization closed permanently on September 30, 2022, after 24 years of operation, coinciding with Belkin’s departure as director. ^{1  2  3}

Advocacy

The Palm Center used social science research, coordination with retired veterans, media outreach, and scholarship offers to assist LGBT service members within the U.S. Military through advocating changes to public and military policy as opposed to legal outreach.  ^{4  8}

The organization was involved in the campaign to repeal the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prohibited service by open homosexuals but directed military officials not to inquire about servicemembers’ private lives. In 2008, Palm Center organized a public statement from 104 retired generals and admirals calling for the policy’s repeal while publishing research on presidential authority to lift the ban by an executive order. Following the 2011 repeal of the policy, the president of the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund released a statement crediting the Palm Center’s work. ⁸

The Palm Center also produced research disputing medical justifications for bans on military service by transgender individuals. After the Obama administration lifted the ban in 2016, a Department of Defense official credited the organization as one of two groups most responsible for that policy change. In 2022, the organization’s research contributed to the Biden administration’s decision to lift restrictions barring intersex applicants from military service. ^{8  2}

Leadership

Aaron Belkin was the founder and executive director for the Palm Center from its founding in 1998 until its closure in 2022. Belkin was also a professor of political science at San Francisco State University, having previously served on the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During his tenure at the Palm Center, Belkin also founded left-of-center judicial advocacy group Take Back the Court and was its president until 2022. ^{3  2}

According to the Palm Center’s final tax filing in 2022, Steven M. Gluckstern was its board chair. Gluckstern, a financial services executive, was also the founding board chair of the Democracy Alliance. ^{9  10}

Vivienne Ming was treasurer. Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist and artificial intelligence entrepreneur who co-founded the think tank Socos Labs. ^{9  11}

Rachel Pritzker, a member of the Pritzker family and philanthropist, sat on the Palm Center’s board as of 2016. ¹²

Financials

In 2022, the Palm Center reported total revenue of $277,838, its final full fiscal year before closing. Revenue declined sharply from a 2018 peak of $1,312,140 as the organization approached the end of its operations. Nearly all revenue in most years came from contributions, which comprised 96 to 100 percent of total revenue annually between 2013 and 2022, with negligible income from investments or program services. ^{13  14  15}

The Palm Center’s finances contracted steadily in its final years. Total revenue fell from $1,189,964 in 2019 to $766,739 in 2020, then to $579,376 in 2021, before dropping to $277,838 in 2022. Net assets, which stood at $1,005,143 in 2018, were reported as $0 by the end of 2022, reflecting the wind-down of operations. ^{16  17  18  13  19}

A significant funder was the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, a San Francisco-based left-of-center foundation that supported LGBT advocacy organizations for two decades before ending its LGBT-focused grantmaking program in 2022. The Palm Center publicly credited the Haas Fund’s support following that announcement. The organization’s initial 2006 renaming, from the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military to the Palm Center, followed a $1 million endowment gift from the Michael D. Palm Foundation. ^{1  5}

The Palm Center also had a direct financial relationship with Take Back the Court, the Supreme Court expansion advocacy group founded by former Palm Center director Aaron Belkin. In 2020, the Palm Center made two grants to Take Back the Court entities: $50,000 to Take Back the Court Action Fund, the group’s 501(c)(4) arm, and $35,701 to Take Back the Court Foundation, its 501(c)(3) arm. ⁷