Grants for LGBTQ Nonprofits

NOTE: Organizations that believe they meet these criteria can submit an organizational profile at any time. If your organizational profile falls within our priorities, selection criteria, and funding availability, we will follow up to learn more about your organization. Due to the volume of inquiries, we cannot respond to each organization individually.

Global Fund for Children invests in grassroots organizations around the world to help children and youth reach their full potential and advance their rights.

Our Model

We find.

• We research, explore, and identify innovative groups working with children and youth around the world.

We fund.

• We invest wisely, funding our partners’ life-changing programs for children and youth and keeping a watchful eye on how those funds are put to use.

Together we strengthen.

• We advise, mentor, and guide our partners. We build mutual trust, accountability, and enduring relationships. We provide tools for self-assessment. We support and help our partners grow.

We build networks.

• We connect our partners to each other and to national and regional networks. We bring together brilliant minds to share knowledge, fuel advocacy, and build movements of social change.

And when our partners graduate, we stand proud.

• Our greatest joy comes from knowing that we played a part in helping our partners grow strong enough to continue their important work for children without us.

Eligibility Criteria & Selection Guidelines

At Global Fund for Children, we invite you to join our growing grassroots network if you have shown great potential to improve the lives of children and youth who face poverty, injustice, and discrimination. As we embrace learning and collaboration, we hope you will serve as a model and resource for other community-based partners dedicated to the same big goals.

Focus Areas

Together with our partners, we are building a future where all young people enjoy equal resources and opportunities in society and can live to their full potential.

Our work advances the rights of children and youth across four focus areas and five regions. We have a deep commitment to courageous organizations that support young people facing poverty, injustice, and discrimination.

We support grassroots organizations that are not afraid to tackle the root causes of poverty with innovative, local solutions. Most offer holistic care to comprehensively address the needs of each child. Many become regional and national leaders in children’s rights—raising awareness, influencing policy, and ultimately impacting thousands of children and youth beyond their doors.

Education

Poverty and injustice—and the many hardships that accompany them—deny millions of children the opportunity to learn. We promote the right of all children to access high-quality education, regardless of their circumstances.

Worldwide, 124 million children and adolescents are out of school. Millions more who do attend school do not acquire basic skills in mathematics and reading. And every day, conditions beyond their control—gender, ethnicity, economic status, geography, conflict, disaster—force children and youth to drop out. But giving up on them isn’t an option.

At Global Fund for Children, we believe that educating children and youth is the key to building a more peaceful and just society. When we equip young people with education and skills, we unlock their potential to contribute to their families and transform their communities.

We support education from children’s earliest years to secondary school and on through university or vocational training. We place a strong emphasis on girls’ education to address the current and historical disadvantage for girls, improving access and quality and ensuring that girls have safe, girl-friendly places to learn. For refugees, children with disabilities, child laborers, and more, we prioritize inclusive, innovative educational programming that meets children and youth where they are and addresses their unique needs. For older youth, we support life skills, vocational, and entrepreneurship education so that they are empowered to make smart decisions, build financial resilience, and shape their own futures.

Gender Equity

Young people have the right to protect their bodies, raise their voices, and define their futures. But millions are denied these rights every day. We work to ensure that all children—regardless of their gender or their sexual identity—can be safe, learn, lead, and thrive.

Around the world, girls, young women, and LGBTQ youth—particularly those who are ethnic minorities or refugees, live in rural areas, or belong to other highly marginalized populations—face exclusion, violence, and discrimination. Too often, they are left out of decisions that determine their futures. At Global Fund for Children, we defend the right of all children to live free from discrimination and harmful gender-based attitudes and practices.

We believe that investing in girls delivers invaluable returns to the girls themselves, their families, and their communities, while confronting historical inequalities in societies worldwide. In fact, it’s essential to ending poverty and injustice. We also believe that traditional gender norms limit the full range of possibilities for boys and young men.

Through the work of our grassroots partners, we support girls’ education, sexual and reproductive health and rights, redefining masculinity, and the eradication of gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting. Our strategies engage entire communities—including parents, schools, community leaders, and local and national governments —to work collectively toward gender justice. We equip girls with knowledge and skills that will help them lead independent lives and empower them to become agents of change, while ensuring the men and boys in their lives are engaged in building a more equitable world.

We also support programs that specifically address the needs of LGBTQ youth and help them achieve equal rights around the world.

Our grassroots partners provide shelter to LGBTQ youth who are fleeing violence or persecution, run LGBTQ support groups and summer camps, and offer essential health information and services. Our commitment to gender equity also values advocacy on sexual rights and sexual and gender identity, helping to create a safe and welcoming world for all children and youth.

Youth Empowerment

Right now, the largest youth population in history is coming of age, and most of these young people live in the developing world. It’s a challenge—and an opportunity—we can’t ignore.

According to the United Nations, 89% of the world’s youth live in developing countries. At the same time, youth unemployment is on the rise. And work alone does not mean prosperity: nearly 40% of working youth live in poverty. Together, these challenges pose an enormous threat to our global economic and political stability—unless we seize the opportunity.

By investing in young people, we advance youth rights and work to transform the youth “bulge” into a powerhouse of innovation, opportunity, and social change.

At Global Fund for Children, we empower thousands of youth by equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to lead lives of dignity, purpose, and economic stability. Our approach involves engaging young people who are also the least likely to have access to mainstream education and training, including girls, refugees, young people with disabilities, and youth engaged in hazardous work.

But economic opportunity is only part of the picture. We prioritize programs that advance young people’s political and civil participation and rights; that amplify youth voices, increase their decision-making powers, and raise awareness of their rights and needs; and that empower young people to educate and inspire their peers to act.

Freedom from Violence and Exploitation

All children deserve to grow up free from danger and harm—yet millions are threatened by war, trafficking, violence, and abuse. For survivors and children at risk, we work to bring safety and dignity to their lives.

Children and youth who live outside of mainstream society—and who are therefore most at risk of violence and exploitation—are often overlooked. Physical, psychological, and sexual abuse happen behind closed doors; poverty and inequality make children more vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking; war and community violence uproot children and youth from their homes and families. Their physical and psychosocial well-being is threatened. And too often, cultural norms make it acceptable to ignore their suffering.

Not on our watch. Global Fund for Children is dedicated to creating systemic change to end violence and exploitation for children and to help young survivors rebuild their lives.

Our grassroots partners provide protection and holistic care to trafficked children, migrants and refugees, child laborers, and survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation. They work to secure children’s legal identities—a critical step toward ensuring children’s safety and access to social services. They prevent future abuses by educating the public, training service providers, and combating harmful cultural norms and practices. And by pushing for better laws and policies to protect children and youth, they contribute to a growing movement that will not accept anything less than safety and security for every child.

NOTE: This is a program/project award for work accomplished, NOT a grant to fund a new project.

General Information

With support from The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and the Helen Daniels Bader Fund, a Bader Philanthropy, Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA) is pleased to oversee the annual Innovations in Alzheimer’s Caregiving Awards program.

Award Background

In the recent past, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation undertook a review of issues facing caregivers of adults with Alzheimer's disease. In June 2007, the Foundation published an expert panel discussion report, Strengthening Caregiving for Alzheimer's Disease, which outlined promising practices, research recommendations, and key principles for caregiver support. It is against this backdrop that the Rosalinde Gilbert Innovations in Alzheimer's Disease Caregiving Legacy Awards program was initiated. The program promotes the reports’ principles—and innovation in the field of Alzheimer's disease caregiving—by recognizing and rewarding organizations that lead the way in addressing the needs of Alzheimer’s caregivers. In 2018, the 11th year of the program, the Helen Daniels Bader Fund, a Bader Philanthropy, joined as a funding partner as reflected in the new name — Innovations in Alzheimer's Caregiving Awards.

Award Details

One award of $20,000 will be given in each of the following three categories:

Creative Expression

Programs or projects that use novel, creative approaches to support persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and their family/informal caregivers. Examples include art, music, theatre, poetry, multimedia (e.g. film, documentary, radio), or technology used for creative engagement or other types of creative expression.

Diverse/Multicultural Communities

Programs or projects that address a gap or chart a new way to deliver services, support, or outreach to family/informal caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease or related dementias in diverse racial/ethnic, age, religious/spiritual, LGBTQ, rural/remote, limited income, and other groups of caregivers with unique needs. 

Public Policy

Programs or projects that advocate for policy or systems changes for the benefit of persons with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and/or their family/informal caregivers. These efforts could focus on legislation, executive or administrative changes, media or public awareness campaigns, advocacy campaigns, or any other actions to strengthen public or private recognition and support of family/informal caregivers.

NOTE: We encourage previous Gilbert Caregiving Legacy Awards applicants — including past winners with NEW programs — to apply again.

Telling the Full History Preservation Fund

The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Telling the Full History Preservation Fund is a one-time grant program to interpret and preserve historic places of importance to underrepresented communities across states and territories of the United States. This program is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ American Rescue Plan Humanities Grantmaking for Organizations and, as such, is subject to federal rules for award selection and reporting. 

Grants from this program will be awarded at the $25,000 and $50,000 levels through an open and competitive application process. This program will provide financial support to eligible organizations to preserve and interpret historic places across the nation that illuminate narratives of underrepresented groups of people. Underrepresented groups include, but are not limited to, women, immigrants, Asian Americans, Black Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and LGBTQ communities.

This program has two overarching goals:

• to support the core activities of humanities-based organizations as they recover from the pandemic and
• to support organizations or projects that use historic places as catalysts for a more just and equitable society.

Along with grant funding, National Trust staff will provide technical assistance to grantees. We anticipate awarding 60-80 grants through this one-time grant program. Grants from the Telling the Full History Preservation Fund may be used to fund up to 100% of the proposed project.

Program Overview

Importantly, applicants must demonstrate that their organization or agency has been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Information on these adverse impacts will be collected through the application process. Adverse impacts can include impacts on revenue, spending, staffing, visitation, and other key metrics that demonstrate a need for support through this grant fund.

Grants will be awarded in four categories:

• Research, planning, and implementation of public interpretive programs that utilize diverse historic places to tell the full history of the United States and Indigenous peoples;
• Research and documentation to enable local, state, and federal landmark designations to recognize historic places of importance to underrepresented communities;
• Architectural design and planning to advance preservation and activation of historic buildings and landscapes that tell the full history of the United States and Indigenous peoples; 
• Implementation of training workshops to support underrepresented groups in preserving and/or interpreting historic places that tell the full history of the United States and Indigenous peoples.

Funded projects can include elements of the four categories listed above. For example, a project could include both architectural designs and interpretive planning for a historic place.

Through this grant program, the National Trust is seeking to support humanities-based projects that focus on the preservation, interpretation, and activation of historic places important to underrepresented communities. The National Trust intends that grant-funded projects will help accomplish some or all of the following objectives of the National Endowment for the Humanities:

• To reflect upon our nation’s quest for a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society;
• Tell unvarnished stories with themes related to justice and equity; and,
• Strengthen Americans’ knowledge of the principles of our constitutional governance and democracy

Since 1986, The Trust for the Meditation Process has encouraged the practice of inner, silent awareness, whether it's called meditation, mindfulness or contemplative prayer. Our financial grants to non-profit organizations renew contemplative Christianity, promote health and wholeness, and bring silence and stillness to a hectic world.  

Contemplative Christianity Grants

Many people think of meditation as an exclusively Eastern religious practice. But Western religion, too, has a long tradition of silent, non-discursive prayer, often called contemplation, which is rooted in a rich mystical literature. Contemporary thinkers are unearthing this tradition. Their fresh encounter with the Gospels and mystics emphasizes that God is a living presence in us – to be known in silence and love and manifested in our acts of compassion.

• Grants made in the Contemplative Christianity Program have these objectives:  
• Introduce or expand the teaching and practice of Christian contemplative practices, such as Christian Meditation or Centering Prayer.
• Focus on silent, non discursive meditation rather than another aspect or method of prayer or spiritual formation.
• Connect with a Christian audience or have a Christian context.
• Identify and support emerging scholars and leaders in Contemplative Christianity and Christian mysticism.
• Raise the profile of Contemplative Christianity, with language and programs that speak to all Christian denominations and that reconnect people to Christian contemplative traditions.
• Reach underserved populations, such as children, teens, and young adults, people of color, people who are LGBTQ, people with low incomes and people facing addictions, illness, trauma or loss.
• Encourage dialogue among contemplative traditions in all religions.

Mindfulness Grants

Thirty years ago, Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts medical school adapted classic forms of meditation found in most religions for a modern, secular audience. A simple practice of paying silent attention to the present moment formed the core of their efforts to help people improve physical and emotional health. 

Since then, a large and rigorous body of research has shown that a regular practice of mindfulness meditation can change us in many significant ways: improving immune function, reducing stress, reducing pain and symptoms of chronic disease, improving sleep, improving attention, fostering self- care and compassion, and the list continues to grow. Today, an ever widening interest in the benefits of mindfulness practice has led to its introduction in many fields and professions.  

Grants made in the Mindfulness Program have both of these objectives:

Introduce or expand mindfulness meditation through educational or human service nonprofits or government entities, such as K-12 public schools, colleges and universities, correctional facilities, rehabilitation programs, healthcare, counseling and case management services.

Reach underserved populations, such as children, teens, and young adults, BIPOC and LGBTQ communities, people in the criminal justice system, people with low incomes, and people facing addictions, illness, trauma or loss.

Mindfulness Program grants are highly competitive and we generally receive more applications than we can award. 

Grant Guidelines

Our focus is short-term projects where a small grant can make a credible impact and result in clearly identifiable outcomes. We make 20 to 40 grants annually. Initial awards are typically small – $3,000 to $5,000.

The type of projects we fund includes:

• Meditation courses, workshops, lectures or retreats.
• Trainings, sabbaticals, retreats and other development for meditation teachers.
• Meditation curriculum development.
• Books, supplies and equipment for meditation programs.
• Efforts to expand and build the capacity of meditation programs and address barriers to practice. 
• Meditation research, especially the development of simple, effective, accessible evaluation tools.
• Publications that effectively spread critical perspectives on meditation and meet an important gap in the current literature.
• East/West meditation dialogue.

Hillman Serious Illness and End of Life Emergent Innovation

The Hillman Serious Illness and End of LIfe Emergent Innovation (HSEI) Program provides up to thirteen $50,000, 12-18 month grants to accelerate the development of bold, nursing-driven interventions targeting the needs of groups and communities who have historically struggled against oppression, discrimination and indifference. These populations include the economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people experiencing homelessness, low-income rural populations, and other groups that encounter obstacles to accessing quality health care services.

We seek creative, early stage (untested or minimal-evidence) innovations that address health and health care problems in new ways. 

The annual program—a complement to the Hillman Innovations in Care initiative—will award up to thirteen 12-18 month grants of $50,000 each.

Mission & Vision

Access Fund is a nonprofit advocacy organization that leads and inspires the climbing community toward sustainable access and conservation of the climbing environment. Join the movement today.

It’s Our Fight Together

Every climber finds something different on the rock: pure joy, limitless challenge, wild freedom, like-minded community. Whatever you seek, all climbers should have the opportunity to revel in it and be inspired to care for the special places where they find it. That’s where Access Fund comes in.

Access Fund was founded in 1991 to fight for legal and physical access to the places we love to climb—and we've largely won that battle. Now, we face a new set of challenges as a result of the sport’s explosive growth. Land managers are no longer asking themselves whether or not we should be allowed to climb, but whether we can do so sustainably without destroying the places we love. With over 30 years of advocacy victories under our belts, Access Fund is uniquely positioned to meet the new challenges head-on to fight for sustainable access, protect and conserve the land, and build a nationwide community of inspired advocates.

To ensure a sustainable future for climbing, we must scale up our efforts to keep pace with the exponential growth in climbing. Become a member of the largest and fastest-growing community of advocates working to protect America’s climbing.

JEDI Grant Program

Access Fund is now accepting applications for its new Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Grant Program. This pilot grant program is designed to bolster the efforts of advocates who are working to promote diversity, inclusion, and equitable access within climbing.

The goal of this new grant program is to inspire and empower climbing organizations to work toward a future in which all climbers can enjoy sustainable access to climbing and feel welcomed into the advocacy community. We’re thrilled to add a JEDI-focused dimension to our support for the conservation and advocacy efforts of local climbers and climbing organizations.

Access Fund is looking to fund projects that address social and cultural barriers to climbing participation—especially those that incorporate elements of education and advocacy around conservation and stewardship. The grants are open to local climbing organizations (LCOs), land managers, affinity groups, and other organizations that are working to protect and create access to climbing and climbing areas and are committed to integrating JEDI principles into that work.

During the pilot year, $10,000 in funds is available, with the average grant expected to fall in the $2,500-$5,000 range. Between two and four grants are expected to be awarded.