The Spahr Center

The center was formed by the merger of the Spectrum LGBT Center and Marin AIDS Project in 2015. ³

Programs include LGBT support groups as well as counseling, medical, and financial support to those living with HIV/AIDS. ⁴

Background

The Spahr Center was created in 2015 to provide services and support to the LGBTQ community and to individuals affected by HIV/AIDS in Marin County, California. It was the result of the merger of the Spectrum LGBT Center (Spectrum) and the Marin AIDS Project (MAP), which was concluded to streamline costs and processes. Spectrum programs focused on LGBT youth and senior support groups. MAP focused on providing support services to individuals with HIV/AIDS. It was originally housed at MAP’s location in San Rafael, California, then moved to Corte Madera, California. The Spahr Center was named after Janie Spahr, who founded Spectrum in 1982 and MAP in 1984. ¹

Programs

The Spahr Center offers targeted support groups and social events for LGBT youth and for LGBT seniors. Support groups are available to parents and to grandparents of LGBT youth. ⁴

The center works with Marin County schools to educate teachers and administrators on working with and supporting LGBT students. ⁵

The Spahr Center continues the work of the Marin AIDS Project which was founded in the 1980s in response to the HIV epidemic in Marin County and provides HIV testing, a county-wide needle exchange program, benefits counseling, home health care, medical case management, emergency financial assistance, and a food pantry. ¹

Financial assistance includes financial support for utility payments, rent, health insurance premiums and copayments, prescriptions, and medical transportation. ⁴

The center has become a major distributor of naloxone, which is used to reverse an opioid overdose. It also provides information about HIV PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis). ⁵

Financials and Donors

The Spahr Center’s 2020 tax returns reported $1,071,713 total revenue and $1,104,318 total expenses. Employee compensation made up $729,298 of expenses. ²

The group’s 2020 donors included Horizons Foundation, “the world’s first community foundation of, by, and for LGBTQ people”; ⁶ United Way of the Bay Area, a local chapter of United Way Worldwide; the County of Marin; and community-focused foundations San Francisco Foundation and Marin Community Foundation. ⁷

Leadership

Janie Spahr was the original founder of the Spectrum LGBT Center and Marin AIDS Project that merged into The Spahr Center. Spahr was an assistant pastor of First Presbyterian Church in San Rafael from 1975 to 1979, then executive director of the Oakland Council of Presbyterian Churches before founding Spectrum and MAP. ⁸

Jennifer Malone became the executive director of the Spahr Center when Spectrum and MAP merged in 2015. ⁹ Previously she was executive director of MAP from 2004 to 2015. ¹⁰

Dana Van Gorder became executive director in 2019. ¹ From 2007 to 2018 Van Gorder was executive director of Project Inform, a research, patient education, and public policy advocacy organization for HIV/AIDS in California. ¹¹ He served as a legislative aide to California state Sen. Carole Migden (D) and San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt (D), was a state lobbyist for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and founded San Francisco’s LGBT Community Center. ¹ Van Gorder retired in February 2022. ¹²

In April 2022 Adrian Shanker became executive director of The Spahr Center. ⁵ He is on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in the Biden administration and previously founded and managed the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown Pennsylvania. ¹³ While executive director of the Community Center in Allentown, he sued the Trump administration multiple times due to its alleged anti-LGBTQ policies. ¹⁴