FRAMINGHAM — A Framingham-based LGBTQ+ youth nonprofit endorsed on video by Maura Healey when she was Massachusetts's attorney general, and now listed among the state's official LGBTQ youth resources under her governorship, is openly advertising race-tiered pay for participants in an August 12 marketing photoshoot at its 160 Hollis Street headquarters.

The organization, OUT MetroWest, said in a public social-media post promoting the shoot that "White youth will be paid $20 for participating, and BIPOC youth will be paid $25 for participating, as we plan to use these photos for general and specific marketing. BIPOC youth are paid at a higher rate in align to our commitment to racial equity."

The event, scheduled for 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 12 at the nonprofit's Framingham headquarters, is for what the group calls "20 LGBTQ+ youth (pre-K through age 29)." The images will be used, per the post, in "social media, fundraising, and marketing campaigns both digital and print." Interested participants are directed to a Google form linked in the post.

Massachusetts's Fair Employment Practices Act (Chapter 151B) makes it unlawful to discriminate in pay on the basis of race or color for any employer with six or more employees. Federal Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does the same for employers of 15 or more. Both statutes apply to wages and compensation paid for work performed. Whether an unpaid or lightly-compensated participant in a marketing photoshoot qualifies as a worker for the purpose of those statutes is the point at which the legal analysis turns.

But publicly advertising a rate card that pays participants differently based on race is ordinarily the kind of thing the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination is set up to look at, and the racial-symmetry of the two laws means the differential does not become legally invisible because it pays white participants less. Title VII and Chapter 151B are race-neutral prohibitions.

OUT MetroWest Inc. (EIN 46-5712986) is a Framingham 501(c)(3) that received its IRS ruling in February 2015. The nonprofit's stated mission is to build "communities where LGBTQ+ youth thrive" through social, educational, and supportive programming, and its programming reportedly serves more than 375 youth and their families each year across the region.

Its latest available IRS Form 990 filing, for the fiscal year ending June 2023, reports $477,071 in revenue, $534,291 in functional expenses, and $97,198 in officer compensation. Its most recent reported revenue figure, per ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, is $708,856. The nonprofit's founder, Kathy Kaufmann, is now listed on the organization's website as "Director Emerita."

Notably absent from OUT MetroWest's 990s over the entire five-year window that is public: any line-item government grants. Every filing from FY19 through FY23 reports $0 in government funding. The roughly $1.9 million in cumulative contributions the nonprofit has received across those years has come almost entirely from private donors and foundation partners, including a $10,000 grant from the Boston Foundation's Equality Fund in 2025. In a July 1 Instagram post, OUT MetroWest reported raising $43,301.81 in its 2026 spring appeal, including a $15,000 match from a "local LGBTQ+ ally family."

What the nonprofit does have, despite not being on the state's payroll, is a long and public relationship with Massachusetts's political establishment. Its 2015 annual dinner honored U.S. Sen. Ed Markey. Congressman Joe Kennedy III served as honorary chair. The honorary committee that year included former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank and state Representatives David Linsky, Alice Peisch, and Chris Walsh.

Healey is now Governor. Her state's LGBTQ youth resource page continues to list OUT MetroWest among its recommended resources. Her attorney general's office also published a "Mental Health and Gender-Affirming Care Resource Guide for LGBTQ2IA+ Young People" that circulated across community organizations of exactly the profile OUT MetroWest describes itself as. The state does not directly fund OUT MetroWest, but by every functional measure it endorses it.

Whether the Governor's office intends to continue that endorsement after Aug. 12, when a state-endorsed nonprofit will have publicly paid white youth less than BIPOC youth for a marketing photoshoot, is not yet clear.