Tim Cook Makes Big Donation to Gay Rights Campaign

Two months after coming out, Apple CEO Tim Cook has made a sizeable donation to a gay rights effort in the South.

Cook gave an undisclosed sum to the Human Rights Campaign's Project One American, which aims to expand lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality in his home state of Alabama as well as Arkansas and Mississippi, as first reported by Reuters. The multi-year, $8.5 million campaign includes TV ads, direct mail, and other outreach efforts in the conservative states.

"When Tim first learned about HRC's Project One America … he said, 'I'm in,'" Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote in a blog post Thursday. "Thanks to his generous personal financial investment in the program, together we will move the needle forward at the local and state level, tearing down misperceptions and providing concrete protections for those who need it most."

The donation comes after Cook in late October broke his silence to announce that, yes, he is gay.

"I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others," he said in an editorial penned for Bloomberg Businessweek. "So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy."

Days before coming out, the Apple CEO in a speech to the Alabama Academy of Honor challenged his home state to do more to protect the rights of its LGBT community.

Reaction to Cook's decision to come out was mostly positive, but not everyone was so supportive. Following the announcement, Russian official Vitaly Milonov — a notable homophobe — said he wants a lifetime prohibition on Cook's entrance into the country. Soon after, a giant iPhone statue erected in St. Petersburg, Russia memory of Steve Jobs was removed, though there was conflicting information about whether or not it was related to Cook's announcement.