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It's Giving Uphill, Honey: Additional Barriers to Fundraising for the LGBTQ+ Community

When I first got the opportunity to write and apply for grants for local LGBTQ+ nonprofit and dear friend of Grow Your Good, Cornbread & Roses Community Counseling, I was SO excited! See, I had written community grants that included LGBTQ+ people before, but I had never written for an organization made up entirely of the community they served.


Beyond even just LGBTQ+ identity, they were intentional in incorporating Black, Indigenous, Neurodivergent, Disabled, and Gender-Expansive community members on their board of directors and staff. It was everything I had been taught to aim for! As a grant writer, I was pumped. This is what all the classes about incorporating diversity were talking about! Finding grant funding for these folks was going to be a breeze!





Well, dear reader, I am here to tell you that was not the case. Here are a few of the unexpected roadblocks we hit:


  1. Being LGBTQ+ was one thing; being rural and LGBTQ+ was another. The queer-focused grant opportunities available in urban areas were not available here in our rural area. Even for opportunities that were available to us, competing with the capacity of urban nonprofits was an uphill battle. This left us largely relying on regional grants, which led to another bump...

  2. The need to advocate for both equity and acceptance. We would like to think that the folks in charge of things like our public health dollars are informed enough to see the importance of serving the unique needs of the LGBTQ+ community. But that ain't always the case. Many stakeholders are unfamiliar with the discriminatory reality that many LGBTQ+ people face or the unique service needs they require. For the resources that are accepting and willing to prioritize this community...

  3. Funds for LGBTQ+ (and other marginalized communities) are already covered by the scope of larger capacity service providers. Within the nonprofit world, the call to increase diversity is a loud one and many organizations are responding by intentionally including marginalized people in their programming. This is great, right? Well, yes and no. When larger capacity organizations include marginalized people in their programming without meaningfully incorporating and centering those community members in decision-making, the results can be haphazard programming that doesn't actually meet a community need. It can also tie up tagged dollars, making it harder for smaller capacity organizations to access funding. This trend is not unique to LGBTQ+ organizations. Black, Indigenous, rural, and disabled communities who have historically experienced systemic barriers in building their resources and capacity continue to struggle with securing funding needed to autonomously determine how to address their unique community needs.


And I wish I could report out and say that we are on the other side of figuring it out but the truth is we are still building this plane as we are flying it. I also wish that I could say CBR is the only client we have seen face these struggles. That's why our support of community-led organizations is so important. These organizations rely largely on individual and business donations to fill the gap left by traditional nonprofit funding sources. Witnessing the additional hurdles these communities face is why we keep our focus on community-led, grassroots efforts.


So, as we close out this Pride Month, think of how you can provide year-round support for the community-led organizations centered-on and led-by directly-impacted folks. If you aren't sure who they are, it may be time to find out or start your own!


Groovy rainbow background with a drawing of Marsha P Johnson and the quote "No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us"

For more information on development or grant services for your organization, contact Destri at destrileger@gmail.com.

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