Next February, Minnesotans will play host to one of the biggest annual gatherings of LGBT activists and grassroots organizers from across America, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference. Coming in the middle of what could turn out to be a decisive year for advancing LGBT equality in Minnesota, the conference’s reputation for rejuvenating organizers and injecting new ideas into local movements could provide a valuable boost to campaigns.

“You name the issue, you name the work, you can find someone there you can talk to,” Alphonso Wenker told TheColu.mn. Wenker is a program manager at Minneapolis’ Pfund Foundation, a co-organizer of next year’s conference, and an attendee of the last two Creating Change conferences. “Looking at the program guide and the huge range of workshops doesn’t get into the depth of the relationship building that’s going on.”

Kelly Lewis, a community organizer with OutFront Minnesota and another co-organizer of the February 2011 conference, told TheColu.mn that she expects the conference will be an opportunity to expose Minnesota activists to other aspects of the fight for equality beyond marriage and employment non-discrimination. The conference, she said, will be “bringing light and resources to groups like The Trans Youth Support Network and GLBT Host Home,” both of whom work on the problem of LGBT youth homelessness and LGBT poverty but who do not have the same budgetary resources as political lobby groups.

In interviews, both Lewis and Wenker said they looked forward to seeing local LGBT groups receiving an infusion of “positive energy” from the conference that will help boost both political struggles and efforts to fight economic injustice. However, Lewis told TheColu.mn that she doesn’t expect OutFront, the state’s premier LGBT political lobbying group to grow its membership or its network of local activists because of the conference, since most of the conference’s attendees will not be from Minnesota. OutFront will likely be at the forefront of any push to pass pro-equality legislation in the next legislative session, or of any effort to stymie anti-LGBT legislation should conservatives win the Governor’s office in the November elections.

Based on at least one other state’s experience with a past Creating Change conference, Lewis’ and Wenker’s hopes may well pan out. Susan Horowitz, co-publisher and editor of Detroit’s Between The Lines LGBT newspaper and PrideSource website, told TheColu.mn that she credited Detroit’s 1999 Creating Change conference with spurring on many advances in LGBT rights for Michiganders. She pointed to the adoption of anti-discrimination employment policies by the Big 3 automakers in between 2001 and 2002.

Horowitz, who served on the NGLTF’s board in the 1980’s, said that given the combined size of the automakers, “it had an enormous ripple effect” among US corporations.

Creating Change conferences, she said, create “this incredible burst of can-do energy, helps create a sense of encouragement” for activists.