Grant Makers and the LGBT+ Community 

Have you ever wondered what financial support is available out there for charities that work with and for the LGBT+ community? Well, did you know the latest edition of The Directory of Grant Making Trusts, a directory containing grant makers that have the capacity to award £50,000 in grants to organisations, includes 11 trusts who do exactly that?

Let’s take a closer look at a couple of these trusts, along with the work that their grantees do, to showcase their importance and contributions to the charity sector.

The Sigrid Rausing Trust

This grant maker, established in 1995, supports human rights defenders. One of the trust’s ten funding programmes, is ‘LGBTI rights’, which supports organisations that tackle homophobia and injustice against the LGBTQ+ community. As of July 2023, this programme has 27 long-term grantees! During the financial year of 2021, £2 million was distributed across the LGBTI rights programme. Beneficiaries include:

GALA Queer Archives – South Africa

This organisation collects, maintains, and promotes the history and culture of the national LGBT+ community. The Sigrid Rausing trust awarded GALA £75,000 in 2021.

Mawjoudin – Tunisia

This organisation raises awareness about the LGBT+ community, lobbying for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Tunisia. In 2021, they received a grant of £30,000.

London Community Foundation

LCF was founded in 2002. It focuses on supporting London-based grassroots organisations, charities or community groups that work with and for the “most marginalised and vulnerable Londoners”. LCF’s vision is a more equal London.

In 2021/22, it gave £46,000 to six LGBT+ organisations. Aside from providing financial support, it has also openly supported and promoted LGBT+ History Month, which it discussed in this blogpost, referring readers to various LGBT+ charities that it has supported over the years. A couple of these include:

The Outside Project

A London-based community centre that offers services tailored to the unique needs of the LGBT+ community.

Galop

A nationwide charity that works with members of the LGBT+ community who have experienced abuse and domestic violence, as well as hate crimes and ‘conversion therapy’.

The Baring Foundation

Set up in 1969, this foundation, like The Sigrid Rausing Trust, has a human-rights focus. It runs multiple funding schemes, one of which is ‘International Development’. This awards flexible grants to select sub-Saharan-based civil society organisations whose mission it is to prevent and reduce discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity. Specifically, the scheme centres on lesbian and transgender communities.

In 2021, the foundation awarded £175,000 to a fellow grant-making organisation. UHAI EASHRI, which operates in East Africa and is activist-led, works with organisations whose beneficiaries are lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans and gender-diverse people. The Baring Foundation’s grant went towards UHAI EASHRI’s core costs. Since 2021, the foundation has continued to contribute to UHAI EASHRI’s grant-making capacity.

As we can see, the LGBT+ organisations listed do extremely important work to support the LGBT+ community, widely ranging from advocacy and lobbying to research and wellbeing. Their donors are committed to working alongside them to help develop an equal world; their financial support is important. For a complete list of funders of the LGBT+ community, alongside other minority groups, DSC’s 28th Edition of DGMT is available now, or find out more about Funds Online and subscribe today here.