Why Give OUT Day Is Critical This Year
For over a decade, LGBTQ nonprofits across the country have come together for the largest national giving event for the LGBTQ community: Give OUT Day. As the campaign’s organizer, Horizons provides – completely free of charge – training tools and technical assistance, a powerful technology platform, and tens of thousands in prize grants to the top-performing organizations. Hundreds of mostly smaller, grassroots organizations participate and receive not only much-needed funds but new fundraising capacity as well.
Scores of Bay Area LGBTQ nonprofits take part, including groups like Amor Para Todos, which creates safer schools, and Oasis Legal Services, which helps hundreds of LGBTQ refugees each year. But Give OUT Day’s impact goes far beyond the Bay Area alone, including in states where stakes are highest:
- EmpowerMT works to build safe and supportive spaces for LGBTQ youth in Montana, a state that recently passed a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for youth.
- Wyoming Equality fights for equity for LGBTQ Wyomingites in a state that earlier this year banned transgender women and girls from competing in female-designated high school sports.
- JASMYN provides mental health services for LGBTQ teens and young adults in Florida, where including LGBTQ topics in school curriculum was just banned.
Starting June 1, these organizations, alongside hundreds of others in states across the country, D.C, and Puerto Rico, will launch their Give OUT Day campaigns, which will culminate in one big day of giving, this year on June 28. This Pride Month, as we celebrate together as a community, let’s “out our wallets” for LGBTQ equality and counter the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ attacks with generosity, love, and pride.
This year, with over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed in state legislatures, Give OUT Day is especially critical. From June 1 to 28, we encourage you to visit giveoutday.org to make a gift.