Horizons Foundation, the world’s first LGBTQ community foundation, today announced 31 grantee partners receiving a total of $402,000 through its flagship Community Issues Funding Program, which provides funding to grassroots LGBTQ organizations in the SF Bay Area.

“Grassroots LGBTQ nonprofits continue to develop innovative ways to serve the community, especially groups that are traditionally underfunded and underserved,” said Francisco O. Buchting, Horizons’ Vice President of Grants, Programs, and Communications.

These 31 grants will support organizations working across broad funding areas: advocacy and civil rights, arts and culture, community building and leadership, and health and human services. These grantee partners will focus on a variety of projects, such as:

• Funding gender-affirming surgery for transmen of color. Dem Bois Inc. is aiding female-to-male, transmasculine people of color in obtaining gender-affirming surgery, which is often prohibitively expensive yet critical to their ability to live fulfilled, authentic lives.
• Providing housing to LGBTQ asylum seekers. In response to the ongoing need to support LGBTQ people seeking refuge from persecution abroad, Rainbow Beginnings is housing LGBTQ asylum seekers and providing them with legal resources, employment mentoring, mental health counseling, and medical services.
• Developing theatre rooted in the Latino/a/x queer experience. In the South Bay, Colectivo Acción Latina de Ambiente is producing Spanish-language plays through its Teatro Alebrijes.
• Empowering LGBTQ youth. Health Initiatives for Youth is providing support, community, and leadership development opportunities to LGBTQ youth, many of whom are underserved youth of color, at middle and high schools in West Oakland.
• Reducing isolation among LGBTQ seniors in the North Bay. Sebastopol Area Senior Center is supporting older LGBTQ adults in West Sonoma County by hosting in-person and online dances, discussions, and educational workshops.

These grants represent the first in Horizons’ updated grantmaking strategy, which prioritizes continued investment in grassroots LGBTQ organizations serving the transgender community, LGBTQ people of color, and bisexuals. The strategy also prioritizes specific segments of the LGBTQ community, namely youth, elders, and refugees and asylees. At the same time, Horizons maintains its longstanding “Open Door” policy that provides support across the diverse ecosystem of grassroots LGBTQ nonprofits and programs, including those that fall outside the stated priorities.

Guided by principles of trust-based philanthropy, the grantmaking process continues to include Horizons’ hallmark community review panel, and grants awarded are primarily for unrestricted operating support. Grants are funded in large part by Horizons’ LGBTQ Community Endowment Fund, a permanent source of resources for the community.

About Horizons Foundation 

Horizons Foundation (www.horizonsfoundation.org) envisions a world where all LGBTQ people live freely and fully. The world’s first community foundation of, by, and for LGBTQ people, Horizons invests in LGBTQ organizations, strengthens a culture of LGBTQ giving, and builds a permanent endowment to secure our community’s future for generations to come. Learn more at horizonsfoundation.org.