Andrus Family Fund and Groundswell Fund Amongst Leading LGBTQ Funders
Just over 60 U.S. foundations increased their grantmaking by 25 percent or more in 2016, earning them a place on Funders for LGBTQ Issues’ 2016 honor roll. Some of the most significant increases came from the Andrus Family Fund, the Arizona Community Foundation, the Groundswell Fund, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Oregon Community Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the San Diego Foundation. They all doubled their support from 2015 to 2016. The Arcus Foundation and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, already top funders in this space, also sizably increased their grantmaking.
In other words, some very big names in liberal philanthropy bumped up their support after the marriage equality victory, as well as a good number of regional and local community foundations. Some of the 2016 increases, it must be noted, originated in tragedy. Relief funding following the Pulse shooting pushed total support above $200 million for the first time ever, a goal advocates hoped to achieve by happier means. “Unfortunately, [those funding streams] are likely to be needed again in the months and years to come,” writes Ben Francisco Maulbeck, the president of Funders for LGBTQ Issues. “As shootings and natural disasters continue to plague the nation, LGBTQ communities and other vulnerable communities are likely to be explicitly targeted and uniquely affected.”