Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was raised in a family that valued community activism, she says, which led her to pursue a nonprofit career straight out of college. “I got excited by the change that can happen through nonprofit work on issues that I feel passionate about—and I’ve never left the nonprofit world.”

Carey has held many positions at the Task Force, from Lead Trainer for the Youth Leadership Institutes in the late 1990s to Senior Strategist in 2003 to becoming executive director in 2008.

The Task Force is one of the earliest and most influential LGBT organizations in the U.S. and its mission encompasses lobbying, advocacy, coalition building, education, and more. “We build LGBT political power from the ground up, and serve as a progressive, uncompromising voice for LGBT equality.”