Which organizations partner with Project Esther to support the LGBTQ community?
Executive summary
Project Esther is a Heritage Foundation initiative framed as a plan to counter pro-Palestinian activism; contemporary reporting identifies the Heritage Foundation as the organizer and notes support from some evangelical Christian groups while documenting resistance from many mainstream Jewish organizations [1] [2]. Available reporting and fact-checking do not list mainstream LGBTQ organizations as partners with Project Esther, and primary coverage highlights critics who say the plan threatens civil liberties and broadly targets progressive movements rather than naming LGBTQ community partners [1] [2].
1. What Project Esther is and who is running it
Project Esther is presented in reporting as a set of recommendations tied to the Heritage Foundation’s broader Project 2025 agenda; media and fact‑checking outlets describe it as a Heritage Foundation effort to shape responses to campus and street activism that the plan classifies as antisemitism or extremism [1] [2]. Snopes and Wikipedia summaries emphasize that Project Esther is rooted in conservative policy proposals and has been the subject of widespread social media claims and scrutiny about its goals and recommendations [2] [1].
2. Named organizational backers in the reporting
The clearest institutional link reported is to the Heritage Foundation, which is described as the project’s home and organizer [1]. Reporting also states that the effort “has received support from several evangelical Christian organizations,” though those sources quoted in summaries do not consistently provide a published, itemized list of the specific evangelical groups offering explicit partnership in the public record supplied here [1].
3. Jewish organizations: sparse formal partnerships and public pushback
Multiple news summaries and commentaries report that Project Esther struggled to find broad Jewish institutional buy‑in; several Jewish and Christian Zionist organizations told The New York Times they did not want to be associated with the plan, and the project’s only widely noted Jewish co‑chair is Ellie Cohanim—an arrangement that prompted criticism from other Jewish groups [1]. Reporting quotes Jewish Voice for Peace and its executive director condemning Project Esther as politically motivated and not genuinely about communal safety, underscoring the split within Jewish civic life over the initiative [1].
4. Evangelical Christian involvement: reported support without granular attribution
Coverage indicates that evangelical Christian organizations have been among the external supporters of the project, a point repeatedly noted in summaries that contrast that backing with the lack of major Jewish organizational support [1]. The specific evangelical partners are not itemized in the assembled sources provided here; thus the public record summarized in these sources confirms evangelical backing at a high level but does not supply a definitive roster in the materials cited [1].
5. LGBTQ organizations: absence of documented partnerships in available reporting
None of the provided sources documents mainstream LGBTQ organizations—such as CenterLink, The Trevor Project, SAGE, or local community centers—as partners with Project Esther; fact‑checking and reporting instead focus on the plan’s proposed tools for policing campus protest and the political alignments of its backers [3] [4] [5] [1] [2]. Because the extant coverage centers on Heritage Foundation authorship, evangelical support, and criticisms from Jewish and civil‑liberties groups, the record in these sources does not identify LGBTQ groups partnering with Project Esther and does not present evidence of formal alliances between Project Esther and national LGBTQ service or advocacy organizations [1] [2].
6. Critics, alleged aims, and why partnership lists matter
Critics quoted in reporting argue Project Esther’s recommendations conflate legitimate protest and progressive organizing with antisemitism and propose tools they say could be used to repress a wide range of dissent; these critiques are central to why many mainstream organizations have been cautious about association, and they frame the conversation about who signs on or stays away [1] [2]. The absence of named LGBTQ partners in the cited coverage reflects both the project’s orientation toward policing campus activism and the public controversies that discouraged broad institutional adoption, but the sources here do not provide a comprehensive partner registry that would absolutely rule out smaller or informal intersections [1] [2].
7. Bottom line and limits of the public record
Based on the reporting and fact‑checks assembled, Project Esther is organized by the Heritage Foundation and reported to have received support from certain evangelical Christian organizations while failing to secure broad endorsement from major Jewish groups; the sources provided do not document partnerships with mainstream LGBTQ organizations, and they do not supply a detailed, authoritative list of every supporting organization [1] [2]. Where the public record is silent or incomplete in these excerpts—particularly regarding any smaller, local, or informal partnerships—those gaps remain unfilled by the cited reporting.