SAGE's vision is a world in which LGBT older adults can thrive because they are valued and have boundless opportunities. Our current strategic plan has 4 specific themes: a) Taking Care of Our Own; b) Living Fully; c) Creating Ties Across Generations; and d) promoting LGBT and age-friendly communities.

SAGE'S capabilities enable us to execute strategic actions which drive excellent consumer services to ensure we achieve our vision while delivering on our Mission. Specifically, SAGE will: • Develop impactful services and customer-driven programs responsive to the fundamental needs of a diverse LGBT Older Adult community (physiological, safety, belonging and self-esteem) • Develop services and customer-driven programs responsive to the higher-level needs and wants of a diverse LGBT Older Adult community (cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, self-transcendence) • Facilitate cross-generational, cross-cultural LGBT connections • Promote LGBT Older Adult-friendly (age and LGBT) communities • Increase influence policy arenas • Build grassroots movement to advance LGBT Older Adult issues • Educate LGBT, aging sector and public about LGBT Older Adult issues

As the oldest and largest organization devoted to issues concerning LGBT older adults, SAGE is uniquely poised to accomplish its goals. We will do this by building on the four parts of our current plan (described above): • Taking Care of Our Own: SAGE has been providing programs to LGBT older adults in New York City since 1978. SAGE now operates 5 centers in New York City. In addition, SAGENet, SAGE's network of affiliates provides services to LGBT older adults in 29 communities in 21 states. SAGECare trains service providers outside of SAGE's own centers and network to provide culturally competent care. Our National LGBT Housing initiative seeks to make sure that all LGBT older adults can have a safe and secure home. • Living Fully: With its unique reach deep into both the LGBT and aging communities, SAGE is uniquely poised to support LGBT older adults to make the most of their later years. Programs like SAGE's Aging Well, and our insistence that “We refuse to be invisible," help ensure that LGBT older adults can not just survive, but thrive in their later years. • Creating Ties Across Generations: SAGETable, a convening of intergenerational LGBT individuals and allies at meals across the United States launched this aspiration in a major way. The rapid advances in human rights for the LGBT community amplify the importance of developing these connections to ensure that community history is not lost. Because of its unique relationship with LGBT older adults, SAGE is uniquely poised to bring these groups together. • Promoting LGBT and age-friendly communities: SAGE has deep ties in both the aging and LGBT worlds, working closely with organizations like AARP and Lambda Legal to name just two. SAGE is in a good position to ensure that LGBT events are age friendly—for example, we don't want older adults who attend Pride events to have to stand in hot sun for hours. Similarly, we will help ensure that LGBT people requiring assisted living facilities aren't required to go back into the close to receive them.

Most of SAGE's aspirations can be readily tied to data markers. For example our Strategic Plan specifically prescribes that: "By 2021, SAGE will increase its revenue by $5,000,000 in order to enrich the lives of 500,000 diverse LGBT older adults across the nation, with special emphasis on 1) increasing the number of and diversity of at-risk LGBT older adults having access to LGBT competent and inclusive programs and services by 50,000, and 2) making 500 communities more LGBT age-friendly. "

SAGE was founded in New York City in 1978 by a small group of LGBT activists of all ages who recognized that LGBT people did not have the supports they needed to age in good health and with financial security. In its early years, SAGE created numerous original programs for LGBT older adults. These programs, which are still in existence and have been duplicated around the country, include: • The nation's first friendly visiting program for LGBT older adult • The nation's first LGBT drop-in center • The nation's first support group for older adults living with HIV/AIDS • The nation's first municipally funded caregiver respite program for LGBT elders Over time, a robust network of organizations and individuals emerged across the country to address the widespread social isolation, financial insecurity and health care disparities facing LGBT older adults. This network increasingly turned to SAGE for its pioneering programs and work to improve the lives of LGBT elders. SAGE began to build a nationwide presence, becoming a vital leader on LGBT aging issues. Today, SAGE: • Has 29 SAGENet affiliates in 21 states and the District of Columbia, providing services, programs and advocacy for LGBT elders in local communities across the country; • Is the first and only LGBT organization to join the Leadership Council on Aging Organizations, the group of more than 60 prominent national aging advocacy organizations that represents millions of older Americans; and • Leads (in partnership with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force), the National LGBT Aging Roundtable, a consortium of 50 organizations from around the country interested in improving the overall quality of life for LGBT older adults. From the beginning, SAGE recognized that it was not enough to provide programs and services to LGBT older people. In order to create lasting change, we needed to ensure that policymakers—from city halls and state capitols, to Capitol Hill—take into full account the needs of LGBT older adults when creating aging policies. Some of SAGE's accomplishments include: • Receiving a historic grant from the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Administration on Aging to seed the creation of the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, the country's first and only training and technical assistance resource center for LGBT aging issues. • Advocating for inclusion of LGBT older adults in the Older Americans Act, the country's leading vehicle for funding services and supports to older people across the U. S. • Establishing the Diverse Elders Coalition with six other leading national organizations that address the needs of elders of color and LGBT elders—who together will soon be the majority of older Americans • Becoming the first official LGBT delegate to the White House Conference on Aging in 2005—and in 2012, playing a vital role in the first ever White House LGBT Conference on Aging.