Glossary
Matthew Shepard Foundation, The
An LGBTQ nonprofit founded in 1998 by Dennis and Judy Shepard after their son Matthew's murder, working to replace hate with understanding through education and advocacy.
The Matthew Shepard Foundation is an LGBTQ nonprofit, headquartered in Casper, Wyoming, founded in December 1998 by Dennis and Judy Shepard in memory of their 21-year-old son Matthew, a University of Wyoming student who was beaten, tied to a fence outside Laramie, and left to die in an anti-gay attack. Its mission is to amplify Matthew's story and inspire people to embrace the dignity and equality of all people, summed up in its long-running slogan 'Erase Hate.' The Foundation runs education, dialogue, and hate-crime prevention training programs, and it helped drive the decade-long push for the first federal hate crimes law to name sexual orientation and gender identity, passed in 2009.
Learn more: www.matthewshepard.org/about-us/our-story