Established in 1980, Horizons Foundation started as the philanthropic arm of the Golden Gate Business Association. We’ve been around for 29 years! Our first grants included a $500 grant to the Lesbian Rights Project, which is now NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights)—one of the organizations that argued the same-sex marriage case before the California Supreme Court.

Horizons Foundation does three main things:

1. Meet the present needs of the LGBT community through grantmaking
   • Our Community Issues grants support LGBT organizations in the Bay Area across the full range of issues, populations, and geography. Our 2008 grantees include organizations such as Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, Frameline, and LYRIC, to name just a few.
   • Our LGBT WISE (Working to Increase Services to Elders) grants provide funding to organizations that offer critically needed services to LGBT elders.
   • Our POCIBLE: People of Color Initiative to Build Leadership and Effectiveness program funds organizations such as Trikone to help people of color LGBT organizations and individuals develop the capacity to play sustaining leadership roles in the community.
   • Our HIV/AIDS Community Grants distribute money raised by the AIDS Walk to organizations that serves HIV/AIDS clients, such as Project Open Hand, etc.
   
   
   
2. Increase giving within the LGBT community
   • Our donor education events help LGBT people learn more about both strategies and mechanisms for giving.
   • We’re home to scores of donor-advised funds (DAFs), which are special vehicles for individual donors to give to charitable causes. You can open a DAF at Horizons, transfer assets into the fund, and make gifts to nonprofits at any time in the future.
   
   
   
3. Ensure our community’s future
   • The goal for our LGBT Community Endowment Fund, which we are building mainly through planned gifts, is to create a $100 million endowment for the LGBT community by 2030.

Some reasons to give to Horizons:

• Horizons Foundation is the only LGBT organization in the Bay Area that serves the entire LGBT community.
• With one gift, you know you’re helping support scores of LGBT nonprofits doing vital work. This includes emerging organizations that you might not even know about—yet.
• The money you give Horizons can have a multiplier effect for our grantees. We’re often the first funder for LGBT nonprofits, and that first grant can open doors at other foundations.

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