June is Pride Month, a time of celebration for the LGBTQ community and its allies. But it’s a challenging time for supporters of LGBTQ rights. With legislation that targets transgender people proliferating across the country, LGBTQ leaders say fundraising is essential to groups responding to the backlash.
“There’s a missing alignment around how urgent this actually is,” says alicia sanchez gill, executive director of the Emergent Fund, which provides grants to small and emerging groups that focus on LGBTQ and related issues. “If funders are saving their resources for a rainy day, the rainy day is already here.”
High among the concerns during pride month is anti-LGBTQ legislation winding its way through state legislatures. The tally is up to 520 anti-LGBTQ bills in 2023, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The backlash has been so fierce that some transgender people have set up GoFundMe campaigns to flee states with anti-trans legislation.
If funders are saving their resources for a rainy day, the rainy day is already here.
“There has been a well-documented flow of funding from extremist conservative donors,” says Katie Hulquist, director of leadership giving at Outright International, a global LGBTQI human-rights group. “We have seen more than $6 billion over the past decade flow to oppose LGBTQ and women’s rights globally,” she says. “So we have to see more investment happening to match that. We are in really a pivotal moment of potential to radically accelerate equality, if we can get more people to join us.”
Small Slice of Giving
Research shows donations to LGBTQ groups pale in comparison with other causes. A recent report found that gifts to LGBTQ groups in 2019 accounted for just 0.13 percent of all giving. The research by Advancing Human Rights, which looks at the same time period, showed that grants to LGBTQI causes accounted for just a small share of foundation giving, with less than 1 percent supporting LGBTQI rights and about 5 percent serving LGBTQI populations.
Kyson Bunthuwong, development and partnerships director at Philanthropy Together, an organization that promotes collective giving, is a member of an Asian American and Pacific Islander social-justice giving circle and active in LGBTQ issues. He thinks more outreach is needed to help donors understand the needs of the LGBTQ community.
“One reason why maybe donors in the past have stayed away from this — just maybe a lack of understanding in how to invest in this community,” Bunthuwong says. “It’s raising that visibility of need, as well as finding and elevating the ways in which donors can get matched to give to these causes.”
Hulquist, with Outright International, points out that the “movement is still relatively young,” with most LGBTQ rights organizations being relatively new — the oldest among them less than 50 years old and many much younger.
Being a new organization makes it difficult to raise funds because there’s a big learning curve, says Daniel Wein, chair of the Jewish Pride Fund, a giving circle that supports LGBTQ and Jewish causes.
“It’s critical that there is an atlas for this,” Wein says, “That there’s a map not just for philanthropy professionals but for people actually running these organizations.”
Wein learned just how difficult it is for new organizations when he co-founded the nonprofit the Center for New Data. “I was the only person fundraising,” he says. “I had never done it before. There were fewer resources than I thought there would be on things like how to apply for grants and which organizations made grants available. A lot of these are not open processes or widely advertised processes.”
Traditional grant makers want to see a proven history, which is a problem, says gill. “There’s a strong need for some of those smaller grassroots, local organizations to receive some of that larger funding,” she says. “But often they don’t have access to mainstream funders because they don’t have the scale that funders want to see or the proof of concept the funders want to see.”
While being new or smaller has been something that has made it difficult for some LGBTQ groups to raise funds, Hulquist thinks that can change moving forward.
“I’m actually incredibly optimistic about the potential for growth for fundraising in our sector,” she says. “There’s so much opportunity to share this movement, to share our programs and our impact and tell compelling stories about why our work matters. We have seen a growing interest in collective giving through giving circles and other mechanisms within and outside of Outright in the LGBT sector.”
Turn to Grassroots Fundraising
To help boost fundraising in the sector, LGBTQ groups are turning to more grassroots options, like giving circles. The groups bring together everyday donors who pool their money to dole out larger sums to charities.
One advantage of giving circles is donors often get very invested in the giving process because they learn about the needs of various charities and then make a collective decision about where their funding will make the most difference, says Wein, with the Jewish Pride Fund.
“It’s about elevating individuals to participate in philanthropy who might not ordinarily have a seat at the table,” he says. “It’s a democratic process. We have 28 members and all 28 of those members get to shape and direct the giving of the overall fund.”
The recent “Giving USA” report showed a downturn in giving by individuals. Bunthuwong thinks giving circles could be an antidote to that trend.
“Collective giving and giving circles are literally made for anyone,” he says. “The everyday donor who may or may not have funds right now but can give $5 the next month. ”
Whether LGBTQ groups are seeking grassroots or more traditional funding, it’s important to connect with donors and provide them the information they need to understand how their donations can change lives, says Hulquist, with Outright International.
“We’re working to engage much more robustly with the media and strengthen our communications over all to better educate donors and amplify the issues and how people can help us make progress,” she says. “There’s really an opportunity to nurture a culture of philanthropy and reach new supporters.”
Hulquist also recommends thinking about different types of donors to see what outreach would be most effective. “We have a huge opportunity to speak to older generations of queer people, many of whom did not and do not have children but who may be able to make significant legacy donations as part of their estate planning,” she says.
Beyond Pride Month
Pride Month is an obvious time to focus on fundraising for LGBTQ causes. But the needs are year-round so it’s important for groups to maintain the momentum they build this time of the year.
“One of the best things [organizations] can do is provide consistent communication with your base,” says gill, with the Emergent Fund. “Pay attention to moveable moments and what is in the news cycle. That not only helps to organize your community and your base but it also can help to organize your funders and donors.”
Wein agrees, noting the events of the past year “have been underscoring the urgency of LGBT-led and -serving organizations. Many LGBT-serving organizations very often still have demand outstripping supply.”
He thinks giving circles have a unique opportunity to serve as springboards to larger funding opportunities for smaller LGBTQ organizations.
“[They] can be the catalyst for these organizations to grow and ultimately get a $50,000 or $100,000 grant from a much larger institution,” Wein says. “But very often you need a $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 grant to get there.”
Organizations that have Pride Month events can continue the momentum by expanding the reach of those efforts. “This year we’re planning to extend the momentum by continuing our Outright Proud campaign for several months after June is over,” Hulquist says. “Because pride never ends. For us, it is every month.”
Intersectionality is also important, gill says. Talk about LGBTQ issues as they intersect with other identities.
“If it’s Black History Month, are we uplifting the stories and experiences of Black LGBTQ people?” gill says. “Are we uplifting those stories during Hispanic Heritage Month? Make sure that the stories of queer and trans people are not lost in other conversations. We exist in all identities and all spaces.”
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