On Monday night, our global managing partner, Dominic Barton, received the 20/20 Visionary Award from The Trevor Project. The award recognizes businesses and business leaders that empower their employees to be themselves both personally and professionally and that give back to the community, especially LGBTQ youth.
McKinsey “has done a huge amount for LGBTQ people in general, for youth specifically, and for The Trevor Project in particular,” Amit Paley, The Trevor Project CEO and executive director, said in a recent interview with Forbes. “They have had supportive policies early on for their employees who are part of same-sex relationships, [they have] an LGBTQ employee group and it covers gender-affirmation surgery for trans employees. [Dominic] Barton, in particular, has been integral in pushing for policies and creating a culture at McKinsey that supports the LGBTQ community."
“I am personally honored and humbled to accept the 20/20 Visionary Award on behalf of McKinsey,” said Dominic in his acceptance speech last night, “and am deeply inspired by the life-saving work that The Trevor Project is doing for LGBTQ youth and for the broader community. As Amit says, it’s so important that our LGBTQ youth know that they are beautiful and that they are not alone. We want the best people in the world—in all the ways that they are diverse.”
In its 20th year, The Trevor Project provides crisis-intervention services to end suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other young people around the United States. They’re on track to directly serve 75,000 callers, chatters, and texters this year. LGBT youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. Forty percent of transgender people have attempted suicide. Every 3 minutes in the United States, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer young person tries to kill themselves.
McKinsey and The Trevor Project have developed a close relationship. In 2012, a New York associate volunteered to work as a Trevor lifeline counselor, along with 20 other McKinsey consultants and colleagues. That consultant, Amit Paley, now heads the organization. During that first engagement, our volunteers helped conduct the first-ever analysis of its crisis services and helped the main crisis line reduce the number of missed calls to 2 percent, a much lower number than nearly every peer organization.
Since then, McKinsey has provided The Trevor Project with pro bono support. Our volunteers have helped The Trevor Project create strategic plans for departments, analyze operational effectiveness, and build the skills of in-house teams. Last year, after helping with the strategic planning process as a consultant volunteer, Sam Dorison became The Trevor Project’s chief of staff.
"As someone who worked as project lead for Trevor while also volunteering as a digital counselor, I can see that McKinsey's impact on our organization is immeasurable,” Sam said. “We're proud to honor Dominic at TrevorLIVE New York for his innovative leadership, because without partners like him, we wouldn't be able to continue The Trevor Project’s important and life-saving work.”
At their annual TrevorLIVE New York gala, hosted by Olympians Gus Kenworthy and Adam Rippon, Dominic was singled out along with Emmy Award–winning screenwriter, producer, and actor Lena Waithe and Golden Globe Award–nominated writer, director, and producer Greg Berlanti.