Horizons Awards 53 Bay Area LGBTQ Organizations $440,000 in First Round of Emergency Funding

By Roger Doughty | April 23, 2020

This week, Horizons issued $440,000 in a first round of emergency grants to 53 Bay Area LGBTQ organizations through our LGBTQ COVID-19 Response Emergency Fund. These grants will fund COVID-19 responsive programming and provide immediate financial relief to critical community institutions.

In these unprecedented times, Horizons’ grantee partners are responding with generosity and courage, especially to support the most vulnerable in the LGBTQ community. You can find the full list of grantee partners here. As only a few examples:

Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, through its Housing First Initiative, is providing emergency rental assistance to low-income LGBTQ individuals.
Openhouse and Lavender Seniors of the East Bay are holding virtual meetings, delivering meals, and staying in contact with hundreds of at-risk LGBTQ seniors facing isolation.
Solano Pride Center is offering free virtual counseling and case management; emergency food assistance; and weekly support groups for youth, people living with HIV, and seniors.
The Deaf Queer Resource Center, in the absence of many virtual events that are accessible in ASL, is working to fill the gap by offering virtual social spaces to support and inform Deaf LGBTQ community members struggling with various issues related to COVID-19.
Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) is supporting Black transgender and gender non-conforming community members coming out of California prisons and San Francisco jail by providing emergency hotel rooms and essential needs during the shelter-in-place orders.
API Equality - Northern California (APIENC) is coordinating a phone tree and virtual healing and community gatherings, in order to help queer and transgender Asian-Pacific Islanders fight isolation and heal from racial discrimination, which the pandemic has exacerbated.

Horizons’ supporters and foundation partners, too, are responding with enormous generosity. To supplement the $200,000 Horizons contributed from its endowment, Horizons’ donors and donor advisors contributed in excess of $130,000, and the Blue Shield of California Foundation contributed $100,000. Also, the Hewlett Foundation and California Wellness Foundation, in support of the effort, allowed the repurposing of funds from previous grants. In total, we have raised over a half million dollars for the Fund.

We are so deeply grateful for your generosity — the generosity of organizations to respond with compassion, and of donors to open their pockets in this time of profound and immediate need. If you have not already done so, you can still give to the Fund. 100% goes directly to the community.

Horizons continues to receive emergency grant requests from LGBTQ organizations in the nine Bay Area counties, and we will soon make a second round of funding. Our community still very much needs your help.