Community Care Fund Guidelines

• We prioritize funding organizations for and by Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTBIPOC) and are focused in rural communities
  • • Pride Foundation operates across a vast and diverse five-state region: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. We recognize and appreciate the complexity and temporality of space, in which one area may be considered a “big city” within context of their state, but in comparison of the region—specifically Seattle and Portland—it is still considered “small.” With this in mind, we define “rural” as communities that are less populated, under-resourced areas with limited and inequitable access to institutions for support. We purposefully leave our definition vague to encompass the region in which we serve. Priorities will be given to small towns/counties and Reservations and Reservation border towns.
    • We welcome your own definitions of rural.
• For this grant the definition for “community care” is broad; ‘community care’ is any collective efforts to protect and care for queer and trans communities. We welcome your own definitions.
• This funding will be unrestricted (unless you want it to be restricted).
• Award amounts are generally no less than $10,000; however, if you want less than that, we can honor your request! 
• There are two methods for submitting a grant application: 1) written application, or 2) phone interview with a Grants Officer.*
• If you want translated versions of the application, email us! We strive to practice accessibility so let us know about any other ways we can be more accessible.
• We’ve allocated $415,000 for this grant to move from now until March 2024 (the end of our fiscal year) or until are funds are moved out, whichever comes first.

*Depending on the number of requests, we may not be able to accommodate your group for a phone interview due to limited staff capacity. We aim to prioritize phone interviews for groups in which a written narrative is not accessible. Your organization must also meet all the basic general eligibility for a phone interview to ensure everyone’s time and labor is honored and respected. To schedule a phone interview, email us at grants@pridefoundation.org.

More about community care

We define “community care” as any effort to respond to community threats, harms, needs, hopes, and healing. We welcome your own definitions and practices of community care. Examples of community care include, but are not limited to:    

• Mutual aid and financial relief 
• Community organizing, policy advocacy, political education and mobilization
• Gifts cards & stipends for community members  
• Access to housing, transportation & health care i.e. rent support, mental health, gender affirming care & abortion access 
• Opportunities for rest, grieving, healing, play, pleasure, and joy  
• Bringing community together though virtual and in person events  
• Protecting people from violence, criminalization, incarceration, detention, and deportation e.g. bail and legal fees    
• Leadership and professional development, for topics ranging from herbalism to accounting  
• Language access and justice i.e. captioning, interpretation and translation  
• Food access and justice 
• Land access and justice 
• Conflict resolution, accountability and efforts to address trauma and harm 
• Safety planning 
• Disaster and crisis preparation and response  
• Administrative and technological support for events, programs, and organizations (e.g. hardware, software & licensing)

Eligibility: who can apply? 

• Organizations for whose work is focused on supporting LGBTQIA2S+ in rural communities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

• Organizations with 501c3 status or are fiscally sponsored.

Priorities:

• QTBIPOC-led &/or QTBIPOC focused organizations/programs in rural communities(“QTBIPOC-led” means QTBIPOC people have leadership roles and decision-making power in most aspects of the organization i.e. staff, Board, interns, and volunteers.)
  • Small towns/counties and Reservations 
• Organizations that have a budget of $750,000 or less or 5 FTE staff or less (does not have to be both); if you’re fiscally sponsored, the budget we consider is your group’s own budget not your fiscal sponsors.

If you believe that your organization is eligible to apply for this grant but are experiencing challenges with our approach and application process, please contact us. If your organization does not meet our priorities for all of our initiatives but are in immediate support in funding, please email grants@pridefoundation.org.

Grant review process & timeline

• We accept applications on a rolling basis until we’ve awarded all $415,000.
• Applications received by Monday, Sept 18th at 11am AKDT // 12pm PDT // 1pm  MDT will be part of the first round of review.
• Applications received by Monday, October 23rd at 11am AKDT // 12pm PDT // 1pm MDT will be reviewed by the end of October.
• Applications received by Monday, December 4th at 11am AKST// 12pm PST// 1pm MST will be reviewed in December.
  
• It takes us about 3-4 weeks to review and make award decisions.
• Once you are notified of your application status, and if your grant is awarded, you should receive your payment within 2 weeks.
• The grant review timeline will be updated in December for 2024 if we have not moved out all of the awards by then.