Darra Gordon (she/her) is Chief Executive Officer of Family Equality, the national organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ families. A nonprofit executive with more than 20 years of experience, Darra has spent her career building stronger organizations, expanding opportunity, and advancing equality for LGBTQ+ people. 

Since joining Family Equality in 2025, she has led the creation of a comprehensive and ambitious 5-year plan that includes strategies to strengthen the organization’s operations and fortify Family Equality as the authority on LGBTQ+ families.

Under Darra’s leadership Family Equality:

These accomplishments reflect Darra’s belief that protecting LGBTQ+ families is more than responding to challenges. It’s also creating opportunities for families to find community, celebrate joy, and create lasting connections.

Before joining Family Equality, Darra served as the Deputy President and Chief Operating Officer at GLAAD, where she oversaw fundraising, human resources, information technology, and finance departments while helping implement a strategic plan that more than tripled the organization’s operating budget. Prior to GLAAD, she spent over 15 years at Hetrick-Martin Institute, the nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ+ youth service organization, leading national expansion, growing philanthropic support, and modernizing infrastructure to better serve LGBTQ+ youth.

Throughout her career, Darra has built organizations that are stronger, more sustainable, and better prepared to meet the needs of the communities they serve. She is known for bringing together staff, board members, partners, advocates, donors, and community members around a shared vision and translating that vision into meaningful results. 

Darra’s leadership has earned numerous honors including the BMW Woman of Xcellence award, the Stonewall Honors for LGBTQ leadership, and the outstanding alumni award at her alma mater, Lycoming College. As someone who truly believes in the power of local advocacy, she serves on her local Board of Education. 

She holds a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management from the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment at the New School University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Psychology from Lycoming College.

Darra lives in New York with her wife Nicole, their three children, and their two dogs, Jasper and Pepper. As both a nonprofit leader and a parent, she is driven by a simple belief: every family deserves not only to exist, but to be protected and celebrated.