Pride Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Pride Foundation is the only LGBTQ+ community foundation in the Northwest region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. It is an expansive organization deeply dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ communities across various grants and initiatives, both organization-wide and at the individual state level.
IP TAKE: The Pride Foundation is an important LGBTQ funder and GUTC signatory to know if your organization conducts work at the grassroots level in its areas of operation. While this is a primarily Northwest LGBTQ funder, it makes LGBTQ grants across the U.S. to organizations that are laser-focused on LGBTQ rights and safety, as long as your work tightly aligns with their mission.
This funder accepts grant and scholarship applications. However, the Pride Foundation recently took a proactive grantmaking approach towards it’s Community Grants, citing an intentional shift to “center racial justice in our work, improve the experience of grantee partners, and align our grantmaking with our organizational priorities to move resources to LGBTQ+ communities most impacted by injustice.” Transparent and approachable, don’t hesitate to reach out to this major funder with new ideas.
PROFILE: Headquartered in Seattle, the Pride Foundation was founded in 1985, in the midst of the HIV & AIDS crisis, by a “small but courageous group of people who came together to create a source of light and hope during a period of profound darkness.” A signatory of the GUTC Pledge, the Pride Foundation’s mission is to fuel “transformational movements to advance equity and justice for LGBTQ+ people in all communities across the Northwest.” It has invested more than $70 million so far in the LGBTQ rights and movement building. In 2016, the Pride Foundation merged with Oregon’s Equity Foundation, assuming grantmaking for its Equity Legacy and Oregon Opportunity Funds.
The Pride Foundation primarily makes LGBTQ+ grants in the Northwest in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. In each of these states, the foundation maintains “staff, board members, and teams of volunteers.” In addition to its main grantmaking programs, the foundation oversees initiatives that respond to specific needs in these individual states. Tax filings reveal that this funder also supports LGBTQ+ causes across the U.S., although to many of its national grantees serve the LGBTQ+ communities and issues in the Northwest region.
Grants for LGBTQ+ Causes, Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
Grounded in “social justice philanthropy,” the Pride Foundation names three main commitments for its grantmaking and engagement.
The foundation works to address and respond to “root causes of discrimination impacting the LGBTQ+ community.”
Support in all forms is directed at “community leaders and organizations that work to eliminate long-standing barriers to equal access, opportunities, and resources for LGBTQ+ people.”
The foundation is also committed to “expanding and deepening the level of engagement among all LGBTQ+ people and allies, including people who are economically, racially, socially, geographically, or politically disenfranchised.”
Pride Foundation makes grants through three main programs: Community Grants, the Community Care Fund and the Washington Youth Initiative. Additional grantmaking programs are run by the foundation’s operations in individual states.
The Pride Foundation’s Community Grants program was established in 1987 and since then has made over $12 million in grants to LGBTQ+ organizations across the Northwestern U.S. While the program takes a broad approach to supporting “equity and justice for LGBTQ+ communities in every corner of our region,” in 2021 it refocused its work to “center racial justice” and “move resources to LGBTQ+ communities most impacted by injustice.” That year, it also ended its grant application program, choosing instead to take a “proactive” approach to its grantmaking. Grants provide general operating support for two years, mainly ranging in amount from $7,000 to $10,000 a year.
Past recipients of the foundation’s Community Grants program include Portland’s Black and Beyond the Binary Collective, the Western Montana LGBTQ+ Community Center, Boise’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights and SAGE Metro/Portland, which works with the LGBTQ+ elder community.
The foundation’s Community Care Fund focuses on support for “queer and trans organizations that are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-led and focused organizations in rural communities.” Included in the foundation’s definition of rural are “Reservations and Reservation border towns.” The program conceives of “community care” as efforts “to respond to community threats, harms, needs, hopes, and healing” but does not limit grantmaking to specific types of organizations, programs or activities. Grants stemming from this program target organizations with budgets of up to $750,000 and/or five or fewer full time staff members. Complete application guidelines, including questions, are linked to the program page, but the foundation indicates that applicants may apply via a phone interview in lieu of a written application if preferable. Community care grants range in amount from $1,500 to $100,000.
Past grantees of the Community Care Fund include the Montana Two Spirit Society, Pacific Northwest Black Pride, Alphabet Alliance of Color of Washington, Seattle Trans Joy and the Liberation Medical School, also of Washington.
The Pride Foundation also supports LGBTQ+ causes through three smaller, state-based programs:
The Oregon Opportunity Fund, a “flexible source of funds for emerging opportunities in Oregon” that resulted from the foundation’s merger with the Equity Foundation.
TRANSform Washington is a “public education campaign” that celebrates “the dignity, diversity, and humanity of transgender and gender diverse people.”
WA SAFE Space is a “coalition to defend longstanding anti-discrimination laws, especially for the transgender community” in the state of Washington.
Grants for Youth and Homelessness
The Pride Foundation makes grants that focus on LGBTQ+ Youth and homeless youth through the following programs:
The Washington Youth Initiative, run with the support of the Paul G. Allen Foundation, supports youth organizations that are led by “Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, People of Color” (QTBIPOC). The program also names organizations “in less populated parts of Washington” and those with budgets of less than $750,000 as priorities for its giving.
The Alaska Homeless LGBTQ+ Youth Initiative supports “innovative, collaborative approaches that address the unique needs of LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness in Alaska.”
Similarly, Montanta’s LGBTQ+ Youth Homelessness program gives to organizations working with vulnerable and homeless youth throughout the state of Montana.
Grantees working with LGBTQ+ youth populations include Stonewall Youth of Olympia, the Odyssey Youth Movement of Spokane, Totem Star of Seattle and Rod’s House, which works to end youth homelessness in Washington’s Yakima Valley.
In addition to it’s more general support for LGBTQ+ youth, the Pride Foundation offers a wide range of scholarships to LGBTQ+ students in the Northwest. Since awarding their first scholarship in 1993, the Pride Foundation has awarded more than $7 million to over 2,000 students in its five-state region. Learn more about how to get a Pride Foundation Scholarship:
How to Apply for a Pride Scholarship (usually open in October with decisions made by May of the following year)
Grants for Work and Opportunity
In Montana, the Pride Foundation organizes the Open to All: Montana Supportive Business Initiative. This is not a grantmaking program per se, the but the initiative works to improve “the visibility of local Montana businesses that are working to create fair and inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ people.” To date, more than 300 business across the state have joined to demonstrated commitment “to creating safe spaces and strengthening support for the LGBTQ+ community.”
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
In Oregon, the Pride Foundation participated in the Immigrant and Refugee Funders Collaborative, which supported community organizations responding to “issues impacting immigrants and refugees in Oregon.” It is unclear if the Pride Foundation continues to collaborate with this initiative. Relevant Pride Foundation grants have supported the United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance, Immigrant Justice Idaho, the Latino Network of Portland and Portland’s Immigration Counseling Services, Inc.
Grants for the Environment
While not a distinctly environmental funder, the Pride Foundation has made a few grants for environmental justice, climate justice and resource rights. Environmental and climate justice grantees include Native Movement and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, among others.
Important Grant Details:
The Pride Foundation’s grants range from Grants range from $500 to $500,000, though most stay below $50,000.
While grants are typically modest, they typically provide unrestricted, general operating support.
This funder tends to focus on small- to medium-sized organizations that are rooted in the LGBTQ+ communities of its five-state region, although a few grants have gone to organizations in other parts of the U.S.
While the foundation’s Community Grants program is not currently accepting applications for funding, the Community Care Fund accepts applications via its online application portal or via phone interview for a single annual application cycle that has opened in April in past years.
For the Pride Foundation’s smaller and state-based programs, contact relevant staff members via email.
See the foundation’s Current Grantees page for information about the types of organizations it supports.
For questions about grants or scholarships, contact Craig Williams (he/him), Program Operations Manager: craig@pridefoundation.org.
You may reach the Pride Foundation at it’s headquarters at (800) 735-7287 from anywhere or (206) 323-3318 if you’re in the Seattle area. Questions may also be submitted through the foundation’s contact page.
PEOPLE:
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