Community Issues Funding Program Grant

The Community Issues Funding Program by Horizons Foundation aims to support LGBTQ nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. With increased funding this year, the program addresses critical funding shortages and the impact of anti-LGBTQ sentiment. It emphasizes multi-year support and investment in under-resourced communities, promoting equity and sustainability. The program welcomes applications from LGBTQ-primary organizations with annual budgets of $1 million or less, fostering a diverse range of initiatives in advocacy, arts, community building, and health.

Horizons’ flagship grantmaking program, Community Issues provides support to LGBTQ nonprofit organizations and programs based in our local community: the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. Central to our mission, supporting these organizations’ programs, services, and advocacy helps advance a world where all LGBTQ people live freely and fully.
This year, Horizons expects to award substantially more funding than ever through Community Issues. We are committing these additional resources to respond to two critical and interconnected realities: the sharp decreases in funding from federal, state, county, and city sources, and the growing strain on LGBTQ organizations and programs caused by the current presidential administration and escalating anti-LGBTQ sentiment nationwide.
In light of these profound challenges, Horizons will provide more stable, sustained, multi-year support to help LGBTQ organizations continue their essential work in increasingly difficult conditions.
As we have since our founding, Horizons remains committed to ensuring that these grants deepen investment in historically under-resourced parts of the LGBTQ community, particularly those most impacted by the current anti-LGBTQ political climate and persistent inequalities. Through Community Issues, Horizons utilizes a systems-based grantmaking model that reflects our commitment to sustainability, equity, and responsive support for the SF Bay Area LGBTQ nonprofit ecosystem and the LGBTQ community it serves. We continue to focus on trust-based philanthropy and multi-year funding.
We know that the LGBTQ community’s needs and opportunities constantly evolve, and it is essential to examine our grantmaking approach and priorities. Horizons 2018 LGBTQ Community Needs Assessment underscored the continuing significant challenges and often disproportionate needs the LGBTQ community faces in the SF Bay Area.
To help target our funding and achieve greater impact for the LGBTQ community, Horizons Foundation has updated our grantmaking strategy. Horizons seeks to strengthen our Community Issues grantmaking emphasizing the centrality of supporting organizations that are based in our community and led by LGBTQ people.
We proudly reaffirm our commitment as a community foundation to an “Open Door” policy in our community grantmaking, intentionally offering a wide range of LGBTQ nonprofits opportunities to seek funding.
Open Door Policy
Community Issues is open to all nonprofits and fiscally sponsored programs that meet eligibility criteria and whose work falls within these overall funding areas:

• Advocacy and Civil RightsArts and CultureCommunity Building and LeadershipHealth and Human Services
• Key Updates to the 2025 Community Issues Program
• Lift the $1 Million annual budget cap eligibility

For 2025, the Community Issues program will accept applications from LGBTQ-primary organizations of any organizational budget size. This change will maintain alignment with the LGBTQ-primary definition while expanding access to organizations with a range of capacities and infrastructure. LGBTQ-primary organizations are defined as organizations:
whose missions include the LGBTQ population as the primary focus of the work;whose staff and boards predominantly reflect the LGBTQ community (65% or more);and which primarily serve LGBTQ people (65% or more).
Broaden Funding Priorities
The Community Issued program has expanded its priorities beyond the current focus on specific populations and organization types. This shift enables Community Issues funding to support a more ecosystem-wide strategy that encompasses a broader and more integrated range of LGBTQ organizations across four interconnected areas: Arts, Health and Wellness, Community Building, and Advocacy.

Eligibility

Be a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization, or provide documentation that the organization is fiscally sponsored by an organization that has 501(c)(3) statusRequest support for an organization or program/project based within one or more of these SF Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma An organization can only submit one application per tax ID number. Fiscal sponsors are exempt.

Ineligibility

Please note that the following are not eligible for support:Requests from outside the SF Bay Area Requests for costs incurred prior to the date of the grant award Requests from government agencies Requests for capital support, including construction and renovation Fundraising event sponsorship (see our LGBTQ Donor Engagement Program) Requests from LGBTQ-primary organizations with annual budgets of $1M or more (see our LGBTQ Donor Engagement Program)

LGBTQ-primary organizations or LGBTQ-focused programs with annual budgets of $1 million or less, based in one or more of the nine SF Bay Area counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma); 501(c)(3) or fiscally sponsored.