Legacy Builder: Tim Martinez’s Lifelong Commitment to Houston’s LGBTQ Health

Tim Martinez grew up in a middle-class family in Fort Worth. “They sacrificed a lot,” he says, about his parents’ decision to provide expensive private-school educations for all three of their children. With a BBA from Texas Wesleyan University, his career path wandered through bank loan operations, college admissions administration, and student loan marketing.

After a development position at Project Row Houses in Houston, where he had moved from Dallas, Martinez says he followed the examples of Cher and Madonna and re-invented himself, making the choice to work in the nonprofit world. When a position opened at the Montrose Clinic, he found what he feels to be his true calling.

For the past 22 years, Martinez has been an important asset in the growth and development of Legacy Community Health. You might say that volunteerism and community service are in Tim Martinez’s blood. “My parents always found time to give back to the community and I saw this as a way that I could,” he comments.

When Martinez first joined its board in 2003, the organization was known as the Montrose Clinic, had one building, and operated on an annual budget of $4 million. Martinez says he never could have dreamed that the organization would grow into what it is today, with over 60 clinics and an annual budget of $400 million.

Looking back, the 63-year-old Martinez says he feels blessed to have been a part of this amazing growth. When it first opened its doors in 1981 in a small building on lower Westheimer, it was nicknamed “the clap shack,” a clinic for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) within Houston’s gay male community. The City of Houston and Harris County quickly enlisted its participation as it began to deal with a strange new disease labeled “gay-related immune deficiency” (GRID). Later, as its origins became better understood, it was redefined as “acquired immunodeficiency syndrome” (AIDS).

Decades later, a friend of Martinez who was a member of the Krewe of Olympus, where Martinez was also a member, knew of his previous experience on the board of the Executive and Professional Association of Houston (EPAH) and approached Martinez about serving on the Montrose Clinic board. When he joined the board as a volunteer in 2003, Martinez was surprised to discover how many crucial issues the board dealt with. He recalls discussions that led to the 2005 merger of Montrose Clinic with The Assistance Fund, which was founded to help people who were living with AIDS pay their health insurance premiums when they were no longer able to work.

The merged group adopted the name Legacy Community Health.

“We wanted to honor the legacy of all the patients we had helped during the worst of times,” Martinez explains. “We also wanted to honor the legacy of our staff who had helped our patients.”

In 2009, Martinez was asked to join Legacy’s professional staff as Manager of Development and Community Relations. In the years that followed, he was promoted three times: Director of Special Projects/Development; Senior Director of Development; and his current position as Vice President – Major Gifts & Planned Giving.

Martinez laughs when he remembers the title of Director of Special Projects/Development. “Quite often, when an organization wants to get rid of someone,” he says, “they put them in charge of special projects.” But in this case, it was the farthest thing from the truth.

During his tenure at Legacy, Martinez has worn many hats. When his focus was on community relations within the Montrose area, he represented Legacy at various community meetings, telling their story and hosting small fundraising events. “It was a lot of grassroots work,” he says, “nurturing relationships and building partnerships.” Other projects included working with the Lesbian Health Initiative to host an annual lesbian health fair, and each year he was responsible for Legacy’s participation in Pride Month events—the Pride fair, the Pride festival, and the Pride parade.

When Legacy broke ground for its four-story Montrose facility at 1415 California Street in 2010, Martinez coordinated the effort to reward donations with donor names on bricks and pavers or engraved into the sidewalk. “I felt like it was really important that everyone be given a chance to get their name there. It was a huge undertaking,” he says.

Around 2016, when Martinez was charged with the responsibility to raise $15 million for a new building in Houston’s Gulfton neighborhood, he worked with a committee that included such power players as Trini Mendenhall, one of the founders of the Fiesta grocery store chain, and real estate legend Martha Turner. The campaign was moving along well until Hurricane Harvey diverted the focus of potential donors to the urgent needs of those affected by the storm. Despite this temporary setback, Martinez and his committee persisted until they had met their goal.

Martinez laughs as he remembers the day of the groundbreaking ceremony: “I think it was the coldest day in December. We’re outside and there’s a photo of Trini and I all bundled up and hugging each other to try to stay warm.” The building did have a tree-topping, but the COVID outbreak eliminated any chance of a ribbon cutting. 

Among the accomplishments that Legacy likes to make the public aware of is that they were the first agency in Harris County to offer COVID testing, and in the 1980s, they were the first healthcare group in Texas—and the second in the nation—to offer AIDS testing.

Martinez’s fundraising genius has been a powerful contributing factor to Legacy’s phenomenal growth from an organization focused solely on the health and well-being of a gay population to Texas’s largest family healthcare organization—though he credits his manager, Chree Boydstun with teaching him everything he knows about fundraising.

“You won’t find us doing high pressure. Our story sells itself. We have been around for over 40 years, and help over 200,000 people a year,” Martinez says. “It’s about nurturing relationships.”

Donors are allowed to designate a specific program for their gifts, an approach that he says works much better than just putting donations into the general operating fund. Some examples of the various Legacy programs are HIV treatment/education, childhood literacy, school-based health, and women’s health. 

“People wonder why we emphasize literacy. If you can’t read, how will you take your prescription medications? How are you going to get a job? Literacy sets you on the path for success,” he explains.

Martinez often talks to people who want to include Legacy in their estates. “Some of these gifts I will probably never see,” he says, “because some donors are younger than me. But this will be my legacy.”

Fundraising activities include an array of presentations, including talks to large groups, as well as small Saturday-afternoon home events called “friendraisers.” Other events include an annual golf tournament and an annual Mint Julep party. Recently, Legacy held a Fiesta event. But it isn’t just Martinez working alone—other staff members form a team that works to foster new relationships.

Although Martinez doesn’t see himself as a political person, when Annise Parker was running for the third time for a Houston City Council seat, he offered to host a fundraiser. The Parker campaign said they would be happy with a turnout of 20 or so people. When Parker arrived, she had difficulty finding a parking place. “I had to order pizza because we ran out of food,” says Martinez about the surprise crowd of 80.

When Parker became mayor, she appointed Martinez to the Mayor’s Hispanic Advisory Board. Mayor Sylvester Turner appointed him to his newly formed Mayor’s LGBT Advisory Board. Since 2023, Martinez has served on the board of Family Houston, an organization founded in 1904 by 12 prominent citizens after the devastating Galveston hurricane of 1900 and a serious smallpox epidemic.

Martinez has run several marathons and half marathons, partly because a friend once told him he would never finish. “Don’t tell me I can’t do something,” he says with a smile.