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We celebrated our 10-year anniversary in November 2006.
YES Institute officially opened its doors as Project YES, a non-profit educational organization. Our new office at Riviera Presbyterian Church gave us more than a place to work. It marked the beginning of an era and a full-time commitment to work toward making the world safe for all youth.
No longer simply a volunteer effort led by founders Connie Barden and Martha Fugate, YES created an entire infrastructure to address the high suicide rates of youth who identify or get labeled as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
YES is the only organization using authentic communication and education, not advocacy or politics, to make a difference on the topics of gender and orientation.
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Our proven track record of producing win/win results has established YES institute as an authority on gender and orientation locally, nationally, and now internationally. Each year YES delivers over 150 presentations and courses to thousands of educators, parents, students, healthcare professionals, police, corporate employees, and clergy. Featured Partnerships include:
We provide accredited continuing education to counselors, nursing professionals, and teachers. Universities from around the country seek our groundbreaking education on gender, orientation, communication and leadership as the most up-to-date and innovative on these topics.
Distance Learning technology has removed geographic barriers and opened the potential for limitless reach around the globe. Demand for our education from Spanish speaking people in South florida and throughout South America continues to increase, opening unprecedented opportunities for us to begin critical conversations where silence has persisted so long.
Our success and extraordinary partnerships position YES Institute on the leading edge of creating new understandings of gender and orientation - the key to transforming environments to be safe for all youth.
"As a youth, YES was a safe space for me to grow. As a young adult, YES was a place to give back. Whoever I am, whoever I was meant to be, YES never said no."
- Allison Tinney, YES Speaker
Martha Fugate, Founding Director of YES Institute, and Connie Barden, RN, MSN, CCRN.
A vision, a commitment, and a call to action so powerful that fear and hesitation are left behind. These are the seeds from which Project YES grew and the underpinnings that sustain it all these years later.
Our personal “Project” started as a volunteer effort, never intended to become an organization. We began meeting with local community leaders and educators to find out what could be done to keep youth from wanting to kill or harm themselves. In these meetings we discovered two missing pieces to the puzzle of why well-intentioned professionals were not taking effective actions: they lacked education and they were not comfortable talking about gender and orientation.
This led to the clear focus that was to become YES Institute – providing education and powerful communication that enables adults to serve all youth, even when they are uncomfortable or hold conflicting opinions.
We have taken a stand for a world where no one would be harmed or harm themselves because they do no fit cultural expectations around gender and orientation. This call to action propels the work of the staff, board, volunteers, and supporters of this organization.
The rewards of this work are many. Lives have been saved; families have been reunited; young people have returned to churches and schools; and joyful futures have been forged from ruinous crisis situations.
There is nothing more enlivening than knowing that due to your efforts, another person’s life will be better. YES Institute creates the opportunity for that experience. We are grateful every day for the chance to participate with the most generous people in the world toward this worthy goal.
YES has been one of the greatest gifts in our lives.
“We need more programs like YES Institute that work with young people in the communities of which they are a part. We need programs like YES Institute that remind us that we all have a responsibility as parents, teachers, clergy, counselors, and friends to ensure the safety and dignity of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender youth.”
- Nontombi Naomi Tutu, Director of Race Relations Institute at Fisk College and daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner |
