Reflections from Creating Change 2026

By Lance Toma, CEO

Creating Change, Finding Inspiration & Throwing Sand Into The Machine

This year’s National LGBTQ Task Force annual conference Creating Change (January 21-25) was timely as we were able to learn from LGBTQ leaders on the ground in Minneapolis and be in active solidarity with the warriors on the frontlines. It was not so timely with regard to 1,500+ of us from all over the country being in Washington DC during Winter Storm Fern. With weather alerts coming at us from every direction, much of Creating Change was about changing travel dates and times. I was able to return a day early to evade Fern, but many friends and colleagues were not as lucky.

I was on the program to co-host and co-facilitate the day-long ED/CEO Institute as I’ve done nearly every year since 2011, along with my colleagues Imani Rupert-Gordon (NCLR) and Joe Hollendoner (LA LGBT Center). With over 75 attendees, this Institute continues to be the reason many executive directors attend the conference. Building relationships and a solid network of queer EDs and CEOs across the country is of critical importance to ensure that the national LGBTQ movement is vibrant, sustained, and furthering impact at every level. I have been particularly amazed these past few years by the preponderance of younger leaders, people of color leaders, and Trans/GNC leaders. Despite the federal attacks on DEI initiatives, our movement has propelled queer and Trans people of color into executive director positions. My goal is to ensure we support them in these roles, especially as we continue to face vicious attacks on the federal level, and for many who attend, from their state and local electeds as well.

My dear friend Nadine Smith, who co-founded and led Equality Florida for 28 years and just took over as CEO of Color of Change (the nation’s largest online racial justice organization), offered these instructive closing remarks:

“The vision that is very helpful to me is to think of sand. We have thrown sand in the gears of the machine. The closer you get to it the closer you can see the vulnerabilities of it. And it doesn’t mean that that first fistful of sand is going to stop it but sometimes it’s enough to slow it down and in legislative session slowing it down can mean killing it. But you keep throwing sand in that machine. And you never know, it may be your first action, you may be a seasoned veteran, and eventually you throw enough sand into that machine that it grinds to a stop.

And I just want to give you a quick quote from Star Wars: ‘There will times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea that occurs spontaneously and without instruction.’

And we have to hold on to the understanding that freedom will always blossom within us and even when the odds seem to outnumber us, go ahead and grab that sand and go ahead and throw it.”