As it has for so many of us, this year has called Pride Foundation to get very clear about what our purpose is, who needs to be centered in our work, and what our role is in achieving full liberation for all LGBTQ+ communities.
Today, it is with a proud and tender heart that I share our 2020 Community Grant Recipients—a group of organizations whose work clearly reflects the values that we hold most dear. Each and every one is advancing equity and justice for LGBTQ+ people across the Northwest, and getting us closer to a world where all of us can live safely and openly as our whole selves in the communities we call home.
This year, we are awarding a record-breaking $665,000 to 92 organizations across the Northwest.
What we hope shines through in these grants is our commitment to being the foundation our communities need us to be right now—an accessible, supportive resource during an extraordinarily challenging year when this work is literally life or death.
These grants also reflect our deeper investments in our three priority areas:
1. LGBTQ+ groups who are serving and led by Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC).
Grantee Spotlight: Liberation Medicine School (Seattle, WA) is an emerging collective of Black trans and queer organizers whose mission is to develop a decolonial and Afro-Indigenous-rooted healthcare system—primarily in the form of a medical center and affiliated teaching programs—that fosters medical autonomy within the diasporic Afro-LGBTQI community.
2. LGBTQ+ groups who are innovatively supporting communities when or where nobody else is, especially grassroots organizations in rural areas.
Grantee Spotlight: Centro de Comunidad y Justicia (Boise, ID) works to improve the lives of Latinx and immigrant families in Idaho through health, education, housing, employment, and other social services. Their breadth of programming ranges from legal immigration support, to know-your-rights trainings, to STI and HIV/AIDS mobile testing, and leadership development work with BIPOC LGBTQ+ folks in rural areas.
3. LGBTQ+ groups who are smaller, grassroots, and who are underinvested in by mainstream funding sources.
Grantee Spotlight: Montana Two Spirit Society (Missoula, MT) is a small grassroots organization that works to advocate, educate, and build community among Two Spirit and Native and Indigenous peoples, including LGBTQ+ and allied communities, by promoting health, wellness and spiritual well–being, healing past wounds, and learning new ways to combat disease.
These are just 3 of the 92 organizations that make up this year’s incredible group of grantees, and I encourage you to read more about the other 89 here.
The questions that 2020 has compelled so many of us to grapple with—our purpose, who we are, why we’re in this work—brought Pride Foundation to this exact moment, to this investment in our communities. Our work is a labor of love for these organizations who continue to show up tirelessly and relentlessly for our people because that is what it means to be community.
We are humbled and honored to be able to support their work through our Community Grants Program—and so grateful for our community of supporters who help make these grants possible.
Jeremiah J. Allen is Pride Foundation’s Director of Programs.