marriage rights nationwide.
46 Gay City News Impact Awards 2020
HONOREE
BRIAN SILVA
FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL EQUALITY ACTION TEAM
Brian Silva is the founder and executive director of the National
Equality Action Team (NEAT) and the National Equality Action Team
Fund (NEATEF). NEAT builds collaborative actions and partnerships
so anyone, anywhere, can fi ght for LGBTQ justice everywhere. The
group’s work is based in education and advocacy that is grassroots,
intersectional, locally driven, and accessible.
Brian’s efforts on NEAT grew directly out of his work as executive
director of Marriage Equality New York and later Marriage Equality
USA (MEUSA), two grassroots groups that built momentum for equal
From that experience, Brian built a track record of executive leadership, organizational development, coalition building,
organizing, and empowering volunteers.
In 2012, as part of his work at MEUSA, Brian created NEAT as a remote phone bank program to allow volunteers
everywhere to support marriage equality efforts in states outside their own. That program brought together 20 local,
regional, and national organizations to support successful marriage campaigns in Maryland, Washington, Maine, and
Minnesota.
Based on the victories in those states at the polls in November 2012 and in the Minnesota Legislature early the following
year, NEAT, bringing in more than 50 organizations, continued to host phone banks — in person and remote — and
canvass weekends in other states. By the end of 2014, the group had contributed to 13 marriage equality victories across
the US — logging more than 100,000 phone calls and knocking on thousands of doors in the process.
NEAT embarked on its fi rst non-marriage campaign in 2015, pitching in on the effort to pass the Houston Equal Rights
Ordinance. As MEUSA was wound down in the wake of that year’s Obergefell ruling, NEAT was transferred to Freedom
for All Americans as part of the campaign to win comprehensive LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections nationwide.
By 2017, with NEAT continuing to grow and embrace a wider range of issues, Brian transitioned those efforts into
an independent organization dedicated to harnessing and building the unique power of everyday people and partners
anywhere.
To date, NEAT has supported more than 25 campaigns nationwide, including four successful nondiscrimination efforts
— in Georgia, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Florida — and built a grassroots network of 1,000 organizers who have
supported national and global initiatives and hosted more than 1,500 local actions. The group has also conducted 17
tele-town halls providing facts, analysis, and guidance for more than 4,000 LGBTQ organizations, community leaders,
and members. In a compact with 30 organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, the Equality Federation, and
Freedom for All Americans, NEAT builds its volunteer base for actions.
NEAT’s work is informed by the ethos of Big J justice. Given the intersectional identities of LGBTQ people, the group
views an attack on any of these identities as an attack on all LGBTQ people. The group fi ghts not only for issues that only
affect LGBTQ people, but as well for issues that also affect them — often disproportionately.