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Meet Our Board Members
Dave Nimmons Dave Nimmons, founder of Manifest Love, has been a gay leader in New
York since 1983. He served as President of New York's Lesbian & Gay
Community Services Center for six years, followed by three years directing
HIV prevention and education at Gay Men's Health Crisis. Through the
Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, Dave did the first research on the
role of altruism in HIV prevention for gay men. He held a Revson fellowship
at Columbia University for his work on values-based cultural change among
gay men. His fifth book, The Soul Beneath the Skin, details the emerging
ethical innovations in gay male cultures.
Why I Created Manifest Love
Daniel Wolfe
Daniel Wolfe is the author of Men Like Us: The GMHC Complete Guide to
Gay Men's Sexual, Physical and Emotional Well-Being (Ballantine Books),
the former Communications Director for Gay Men's Health Crisis, and a
writer and gay health activist. His work has appeared in many publications,
including the Advocate, POZ, OUT, the Guardian, The New York Times Book
Review and the Village Voice.
"The straight world often fails to bear witness to strengths, relationships
or resiliences outside the heterosexual frame. As gay men we've found
it easy to do the same, and slip into "is that all there is" thinking.
Manifest Love offers men a much richer discussion, and a chance to imagine
new ways of looking at our world rather than just wishing the uncomfortable
parts away. That act of addition in a world of detractors is a powerful
act of courage, and love, for which I'm grateful."
Dave Abbott
Dave Abbott, our Rhode Island Coordinator, has been helping build gay
community in Providence for the last 17 years in a number of activist
roles. He served for seven years as Gay Community Health Educator at
AIDS Project, RI, and now runs a gay men's health initiative in Providence.
"I see Manifest Love as the pragmatic next step in building a healthy
community. Naturally, I wanted to be in the middle of it. It’s
not that ML is HIV focused, rather it’s about gay men and what
we want and need from each other in the community. Gay Providence has
been gripped by so many crises, and always been about survival - which
feels like endless work. I get a kick out of ML because it’s about
building our culture, not defending it from extinction."
Ed Negron
Ed Negron, Chicago
Ed is a well-known and longtime community activist in Chicago. An appointee
on the Chicago Task Force for Sustance Use and Abuse, he also helped
co-found Compassion Action, an HIV prevention group, was vice president
and sergeant at arms of the Windy City Boys' Troop and was the third
runner up in the 2003 Mr. Cellblock Competition. By day, he can be found
as Assistant General Manager of Cheetah Gym.
"This work is so simple, but incredibly profund. To me, Manifest
Love is one of the most important and powerful projects now going on
for gay men. By pointing out the uniqueness and value of the gay male
culture, to ourselves and to the larger culture, Manifest Love can have
a profound impact on gay men's sense of who we are. I haven't felt such
a sense of optimism for us in a very long time."
Jim Mitulski
Rev. Jim Mitulski,
Associate Director of Leadership Development
Metropolitan Community Churches
"This work is a revelation. It deftly draws on literature, philosophy,
social science and most important, the gay male experience to show us
how we know how to build the beloved community for which every gay man
longs. This is a sacred path for the individual journeyer looking to
come home, and a practical path for the community organizer gathering
gay men into new and liberating relationships. This work unites spirit
and body and intellect, healing the hurt and inspiring us to new ways
of being gay men with each other, with women, and with the world around
us. Manifest Love helps us see that we are holy, and that we are whole."
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