As Our Community Recovers, Let’s Show Up for LGBTQ Nonprofits This Pride Month
Give OUT Day is June 30, 2021. Show your pride and make a gift today!
Last year, the most challenging year in recent memory, our community came together like never before. Through an annual campaign called Give OUT Day, over 19,000 individuals collectively raised over $1.6 million — a record amount — for hundreds of LGBTQ organizations across the country. At a time of unprecedented need, our community showed up and continues to do so.
Organized by Horizons Foundation, the world’s first LGBTQ community foundation, Give OUT Day is a month-long fundraising campaign culminating on June 30, the only national day of giving for the LGBTQ community. Since 2013, Give OUT Day has raised millions of dollars for LGBTQ organizations — mostly small, grassroots nonprofits — whose work spans all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and all facets of LGBTQ life, from civil rights and health care to choirs and sports leagues. Thousands of donors show their Pride by making donations of $10 or more.
In 2021, the LGBTQ community has the opportunity to show up once again and collectively make a difference like we have in the past. During all of Pride Month, until 11:59 p.m. EDT on Give OUT Day (June 30), all donations to participating nonprofits on giveoutday.org help these organizations do their critical work. But Give OUT Day donations go even further: The organizations that earn the most individual donors win additional cash prizes that boost their impact.
To take part, visit giveoutday.org/search to find familiar or new organizations whose work you value. Filters for location and areas of service make it simple to find LGBTQ nonprofits near you — or near to your heart. You can then choose one or many organizations to support and use the shopping cart feature to support multiple nonprofits in a single transaction.
Whether or not you have the ability to donate, you can uplift our community by sharing giveoutday.org on social media and encouraging your friends to participate, especially on Give OUT Day itself, June 30. Each and every one of our voices has a ripple effect — and all of our voices are needed right now.
As more and more people receive vaccines and cities lift restrictions, our nation has entered a phase of recovery. But one thing is clear: The critical work of LGBTQ nonprofits is no less important than it was before.
Months into 2021, not only do the impacts of COVID-19 continue to disproportionately harm the LGBTQ community, but our community also faces a wave of anti-trans bills in state legislatures, among other long-standing issues facing our community, especially the most marginalized.
We need thriving LGBTQ nonprofits to ensure our community fully recovers and to continue fighting for a world in which all LGBTQ people live freely and fully. But these organizations are at risk: As found in a March 2021 study conducted by Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, 38% of U.S. nonprofits are at risk of closing within two years due to the financial hardships caused by COVID-19.
But like our community has done time and time again, we will show up. This Pride Month, we must work together to support organizations doing the critical work our community needs. Through Give OUT Day this year, thousands of donors have already made gifts, and over a hundred have started fundraisers. When we work together as a community, our collective impact can be tremendous.
Nikole Pagan is the Program Officer and Give OUT Day Program Manager at Horizons Foundation.