Return to Center

Mike Thompson Resumes Leadership Role in Palm Springs

Home is more than just a building or a plot of land; it’s a vow. When we make a safe space for our loved ones, we commit to loving them, protecting them, and celebrating their identity. But for our extended queer family, the concept of home can be elusive or even destructive.

Americans spend over $500 billion annually to renovate and repair their abodes, yet many of them fail to embrace the very people who dwell within them. So, what do you do when you find yourself lost and alone?

Answer: get centered.

“For me, the Center is so much less about the physical space and more about the magic that happens in the connection.” These are the heartfelt words of Mike Thompson, CEO and Executive Director of the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert. “When connections are made, community is created, and so isn’t that what we all really want? To be seen, to be valued and to be in a relationship, whether it’s an intimate relationship or community relationship, and so I think that we are a connector.”

Thompson strives to build bridges, no matter how troubled the waters below might be. “In today’s climate, when so many members of our community are at risk of violence or threats of violence, I think it’s important to look at community beyond zip codes, beyond geographic regions, right into the broader ecosystem that we share.”

It’s an endeavor that has enthralled Thomson ever since he was a young child. “My adopted mother’s family is Cherokee,” narrates Thompson. “My grandmother, every Labor Day, would take us to the Cherokee national holiday celebration, and I just remember being taken by the music, the food, the pageantry, but also just this celebration of community. And so, I think that’s kind of in my DNA.”

Thompson always had the knack for nurturing, but none of the systems surrounding him seemed sufficient. “It was like an evolution that was very wrapped up in, tangled up in my own journey as this queer kid from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma… I did two years of ministry training and I call bullshit on the whole thing.”

Rigid religious structures failed to meet the needs of Thompson’s burgeoning worldview, so he ventured west to forge a sense of belonging. “When I first came to Palm Springs,” he recounts, “the Center was, you know, this struggling organization that operated in a small space above a smoke shop next to the beauty school.”

But where others saw problems, Thompson envisioned possibilities. “A community like Palm Springs with its demographics deserved a vibrant, if not flagship, community center. To me it felt like all the ingredients were here. We just needed somebody to facilitate the mixture, to make it happen. Palm Springs is a special place.”

When outlining a program worthy of such a signature city, Thompson dug back to his roots to form a crystalizing philosophy. “There’s this Cherokee word,” he explains, “Digadatseli’i – we belong to one another…I have a responsibility to care for you.” The sentiment is now an anthem. Thompson translates his passion for compassion to the building that has affectionately become known as The Center. “Before we moved into this space, when we were just conceptualizing, I had told our architect that I want people to walk into the space and have an experience that they might not even be able to articulate. Every single time I’ve given a tour of this place, people comment about how it feels before they comment about how it looks. That’s not something that you can do in a design; that’s something that’s infused in the space.”

Inclusivity courses through the structure and radiates out to the staff and everyone they serve. “Nothing is more important than the person standing in front of us. In our lengthy to-do lists, we’ve got to be careful not to be transactional, that we have to center relationships, and that’s Digadatseli’i.”

It’s a big idea that applies to the smallest details, as outlined in the Center’s strategic pillars.

“Ending isolation and loneliness, connecting people to resources and community, enriching our individual and collective experience advocating on behalf of those most marginalized – this all comes back again to connection, whether it’s folks in the behavioral health clinic connecting to the things that that they need for support, to resources like food through our community food bank. Or you know, some of it is social, like the card groups that meet here.”

Indeed, the Center is a hoot and a half, offering everything from yoga to ukulele lessons. But after serving as its CEO from 2014 to 2021, Thompson had to depart the party.  “I was in Tulsa Oklahoma to be close to my mother.”

But no matter how far he traveled, he was still listening and learning. “I met a young trans man who said every trans person he knows in the state of Oklahoma was planning their exit strategy. And so that idea of Digadatseli’i, that we have a responsibility in Palm Springs to create a space that can be a beacon for those that are in communities that are under threat, to be a haven for them, a sanctuary for them.” 

During his hiatus from the Center, Thomson made it his mission to gain a grand perspective of our fractured family and how to help heal it. “Through my work with CenterLink, I would be in contact with community centers in rural communities or very conservative communities where people were planning an exodus… Our role, I think, is to serve the needs of this immediate community in the best way we can, within the capacity we have. But be mindful that there are others that need us as well that might not share our zip code.”

Now, the 92262 is lucky to have Thompson back at the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert, a role he relishes.

“It’s just a privilege to step away from a job that I loved for, you know, very personal reasons, but then to have the opportunity to come back and to come back with fresh eyes and enhanced professional experience that I think can better equip me for the what’s next and then go to work alongside a team of passionate, dedicated people.”

Punctuating his point earnestly, Thompson continues, “It’s humbling, you know it’s humbling.”

Thompson attracts like-minded philanthropists who elevate the work of the Center daily. “We’ve been extremely fortunate to work alongside a number of donors, both large and small, that share this vision of providing support to our community. There are many people that support the Center that might not benefit directly from our programs and services, but they benefit from being a part of the magic.”

Thomson is at the intersection of experience and innovation. He can build from his previous tenure as CEO while simultaneously infusing new energy into all the Center’s initiatives. “While the job is familiar, it’s still brand-new… What does our community need today? Where do we need to deepen programming? Where do we need to expand programming? Where might marginalized folks need to be centered to be able to better support? We want to make sure that we’re both aspirational and inspirational in our way forward.”

And it’s clear that Thompson’s path leads him squarely back to The Center. “I feel like this is just an extension of who I am, and so that is just like a life bonus.”

Thank you, Mike Thompson – and welcome back!