Happy Pride! Sitting here today, by myself in our small dining-room-turned-pandemic-office, I know it’s entirely possible — for any of us — to be proud all by ourselves, or simply within our close circles of families and friends. We don’t have to have huge parades or cheering crowds.

At the same time, for many of us, some of our proudest moments as LGBTQ people have come when we’re together — when we’re in community. Our community. I can recall perfectly that feeling at my first Pride celebration in Madison, Wisconsin, the pure joy, the cry-out-loud pride of being in community.

In community: that’s also how we’ve made any progress at all. We’ve had many heroes and heroines. But it’s always — always — been together that we’ve changed the world.

This pride of being in community runs deep at Horizons Foundation.

In community is how Horizons awarded its first grant in 1980 and thousands since.

In community is how we’re building a permanent source of resources for LGBTQ generations to come.

In community — though not in person — is how we got through a most challenging 2020, and how our community will recover through 2021 and beyond.

These two words — in community — richly capture the foundation’s work over more than four decades, and they form the theme of the foundation's recent publication that I’m so excited to share with you today.

“40 Years in Community” looks back at the foundation’s first 40 years through the lens of community: its many complex dimensions, its countless layers. Each two-page spread features a timeline that spotlights one facet of our work, tracing its development from 1980 through 2020, and revealing along the way, with extraordinary clarity, what it means to be in community. 

This publication is also the foundation’s annual report for the fiscal year July 2019 – June 2020, highlighting the partners and supporters like you who keep the foundation strong today.

A joyful Pride 

This weekend is Pride here in San Francisco, and it will once again look different than in years past. But I hope this publication serves as a reminder that to be in community means more than to march together in a grand gathering. No matter how you celebrate this year, I invite you to explore this deeper meaning in “40 Years in Community” today.

May your Pride be joyous.