Washington Blade - April 12, 2002
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

This year, in a break from that tradition, the Cherry Fund, a non-profit group that produces the annual Cherry circuit party dances in D.C., has chosen not to name an AIDS organization as one of its beneficiaries.

"This is certainly a valid question - whether the Cherry Fund should always include an AIDS charity as its beneficiary," said attorney Patrick Menasco, one of the lead organizers of Cherry 7, the gay circuit party scheduled to take place in D.C. April 26-28.

"Like other groups, we are changing our emphasis, but we remain strongly committed to AIDS causes and AIDS organizations," Menasco said.

Three of the four organizations selected as beneficiaries this year - a fund for a planned gay and lesbian community center, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Foundation, and the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League - play a direct or indirect role in assisting people with HIV and AIDS, Menasco said. The Cherry Fund named the Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer as its fourth beneficiary this year.

Menasco said a D.C. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community center, which the Cherry Fund has taken the lead role in organizing, would provide low-cost space for AIDS service organizations as well as for gay groups that advocate on behalf of people with AIDS. He noted that SMYAL provides AIDS education and prevention programs for gay youth in the D.C. metropolitan area.

The Victory Foundation, the tax-exempt educational arm of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a bipartisan political group, helps to train openly gay candidates interested in running for public office. Menasco said people with HIV and AIDS would "clearly" benefit from openly gay elected officials, whom he said have a strong interest in and knowledge of AIDS-related issues.

"Most of our patrons are interested in the Cherry Fund's overall mission, which is to help any gay-related social causes, not just AIDS," Menasco said. "We think we are doing the right thing, and we think our patrons support our efforts."

But at least some longtime supporters of the Cherry circuit parties reacted with surprise and disappointment upon learning that the Cherry 7 event won't be giving money to an AIDS organization, according one veteran circuit party follower, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. According to this person, patrons of past Cherry events have generated a flurry of e-mail exchanges, some of which complained that the Cherry Fund began selling tickets for this year's event more than two months before announcing who the beneficiaries would be.

"Many people who bought tickets had the expectation that at least one AIDS group would be a beneficiary," said the circuit party follower, who is familiar with the events promotion business. "This makes the Cherry Fund the only non-commercial circuit party that doesn't name an AIDS group as a charity to receive funds."

In past years, the Cherry Fund has given a portion of its proceeds to the Whitman-Walker Clinic, the city's largest private AIDS service agency, and Food & Friends, a non-profit social services agency that delivers free meals to thousands of homebound people with HIV and other diseases. The D.C. CARE Consortium, a non-profit AIDS service provider, has also been among the Cherry Fund's beneficiaries in the past.

Menasco points to Food & Friends as an example of how a group originally committed to serving only people with HIV has broadened its mission to include others. He said the Cherry Fund believes circumstances in the gay community have changed and that its selection of beneficiaries in 2002 reflects those changes.

He said the Cherry Fund has contributed about $540,000 to its beneficiaries from its Cherry circuit parties during the past three years - $80,000 in 1999, $290,000 in 2000, and $170,000 in 2001. Menasco noted that contributions from the 2000 event were unusually large because it coincided with the Millennium March on Washington for Lesbian & Gay Equality, an event that drew hundreds of thousands of gays to D.C.

Cherry Fund officials became embroiled in a dispute with Millennium March organizers when they declined to pay the march a $45,000 fee as part of an agreement in which the MMOW promoted the Cherry event as an official march activity. MMOW organizers said the Cherry event's status as a march-related event is what enabled the Cherry Fund to sell thousands of tickets and reap its largest net return ever. Menasco said the MMOW breached its agreement with the Cherry Fund by failing to obtain a tax-exempt status from the IRS, known as a 501(c)(3), allowing contributors to deduct their donations from their income taxes.

Millennium March officials said they decided to obtain a different tax-exempt classification that allowed the march to take partisan political positions. That classification, known as a 501(c)(2) exemption, does not allow contributors to take a tax deduction from their contributions. Menasco said the Cherry Fund's bylaws and charter prohibit it from giving money to groups that don't have a 501(c)(3) classification.

MMOW officials said their attorneys advised them that another, supportive organization with a 501(c)(3) status could have received the Cherry Fund payment on behalf of the march and then transferred the contribution to the march, in a fully legal transaction. MMOW officials said the Metropolitan Community Church, which was one of the original sponsors of the Millennium March, had agreed to serve in that role.

Menasco said the Cherry Fund's attorneys advised the group not to enter into such an arrangement, saying it could jeopardize the Cherry Fund's tax-exempt status. Millennium March officials suggested that the Cherry Fund appeared to be using the tax issue as an excuse to renege on its financial obligation to the march.

Now, nearly two years later, after the Millennium March closed its books with a large deficit and without being able to pay thousands of dollars it owned to creditors, Menasco said time has shown the Cherry Fund made the right decision in not paying the march.

"Instead of that money disappearing into the deficit of the march, it has been put to good use, helping groups like Whitman-Walker and the Victory Foundation," he said.

Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.

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