Horizons Foundation Awards $1 Million in New Funding to Four Bay Area Transgender POC Organizations
Horizons Foundation is proud to announce that four Transgender People of Color (Trans POC) organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area will receive funding totaling $1 million over three years via our new Trans POC Initiative. Through this bold initiative, Horizons is committing to investing in and partnering with Trans POC-primary organizations by providing funding towards transformative, multi-year infrastructure improvement and capacity building grants.
Despite the Bay Area’s rich racial, ethnic, and LGBTQ diversity, the Trans POC community continues to face severe economic and social inequities, worsened by systemic discrimination, underinvestment from philanthropy, and a hostile political climate. Recent policies, threats, and federal funding cuts by the Trump administration have increasingly targeted trans visibility, rights, safety, access to healthcare, and more.
Additionally, philanthropic support for the transgender community remains alarmingly scarce. According to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, just 4.6 cents of every $100 in U.S. foundation funding in 2022 was directed to transgender and gender-nonconforming communities and issues.
And though it is one of the wealthiest regions of the country, the Bay Area exhibits among the highest rates of income inequality. According to recent U.S. Census Bureau data, the top 5% of households in San Francisco County earned an average of $808,105 annually compared to $16,184 for the bottom 20%. These disparities are compounded by higher poverty rates experienced by transgender people.
Horizons Foundation’s Trans POC Initiative directly responds to these inequities, funding gaps, and government actions by awarding multi-year grants that will strengthen the organizations’ long-term operations and ensure crucial services and resources remain available for the Bay Area Trans POC community.
“Trans-led organizations are a vital part of the vibrant and diverse LGBTQ community in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Roger Doughty, President of Horizons Foundation. “Given today’s political climate, this initiative reflects our deep commitment to ensuring not just the survival, but the strength of these organizations. Horizons is proud to partner with them as they secure the future for Trans POC communities with vision, resilience, and power.”
The four Trans POC grantee organizations are:
El/La Para TransLatinas advocates for the rights of TransLatinx individuals and operates the only safe space for the trans/intersex/gender diverse Latinx community in Northern California. “Our community right now is barely surviving,” said Nicole Santamaria, El/La’s Executive Director. “The lack of funding is pushing us more into the margins. El/La is a ray of hope, a mother to our community. This funding will help us weather this storm, become stronger, and continue to provide services, because when the most marginalized in our communities are safe, are thriving, are healthy, then the rest of society is going to be positively impacted.”
Lavender Phoenix works to build transgender, nonbinary, and queer Asian Pacific Islander (API) power through organizing and training grassroots leaders in the Bay Area. “Facing hundreds of anti-trans bills across the country, a lot of people in our community are terrified,” said Yuan Wang, Lavender Phoenix’s Executive Director. “Trans communities of color aren’t living single issue lives. There’s been an escalation in every front of vulnerability that our folks are living through, from immigration, to economic stability to housing. Organizations like Lavender Phoenix need to be around longer than the four years of this administration, and this funding is a big step in helping us get there.”
Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGIJP Black Trans Cultural Center works to build voice, power, and leadership among Black trans people affected by the criminal justice system. “This grant from Horizons helps us cover many of the things that other funders don’t want to fund,” said Janetta Johnson, TGIJP’s CEO. “Trans-led organizations are under attack. We must show up for the Black trans community as strong, united, and resourced as we ever have. The time is now to build, expand, and create a space that is for us, by us, and with us.”
The Transgender District works to create an urban environment that fosters the rich history, culture, legacy, and empowerment of transgender people in the Tenderloin, San Francisco. “This grant is an investment in our capacity to uplift trans futures,” said Belen Meza, The Transgender District’s Development & Partnerships Associate. “Our community, particularly Black and Brown trans women, are facing a constant state of survival, navigating housing insecurity, economic exclusion, and daily threats to their safety and dignity. This funding will allow us to finally build the stable, sustainable infrastructure to continue delivering impactful services.”
For 45 years, Horizons Foundation has been at the forefront of providing funding to help the San Francisco Bay Area’s LGBTQ organizations strategically grow and solidify their infrastructure.
“The Trans POC Initiative is part of Horizons’ comprehensive funding strategy and our commitment to supporting the full breadth of the LGBTQ nonprofit ecosystem and the communities it serves," said Francisco Buchting, Horizons Foundation’s VP of Grants, Programs, and Communications. "It reflects what we’ve always stood for as a community foundation—not just supporting services, but investing in sustainability, leadership, and long-term impact.”
For more information, please contact Horizons Foundation’s Sr. Communications Manager Justin Seiter at [email protected]. Click here to view the press release.
