San Diego Pride
OVERVIEW: Using proceeds from its well-known and widely-attended San Diego Pride Festival, this organization supports LGBTQ-serving organizations in the San Diego area and around the world.
IP TAKE: San Diego Pride is the force behind the annual San Diego Pride Festival, but it is also a grantmaker that supports “nonprofits whose programs seek to strengthen the LGBTQ community” in San Diego, around the U.S. and globally. SDF also runs LGBTQ and justice-focused events, programs and trainings that provide multiple avenues for getting to know the organization. Its annual grantmaking program accepts applications in the fall, but don’t wait until then to get involved.
PROFILE: San Diego Pride (SDP) was established in 1974 as a subprogram of San Diego’s Center for Social Services. In its earliest years, it organized San Diego’s Lesbian and Gay Parade. Today, the organization runs the annual San Diego Pride Festival, a weekend-long event through which SDP raises most of its funds. SDP is a signatory of the GUTC, and its current mission is to “foster[…] pride, equality, and respect for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities locally, nationally, and globally.”
In addition to its well-known festival, SDP runs an annual Pride Community Grant Cycle to support “LGBTQ-serving nonprofits whose programs seek to strengthen the LGBTQ community.” This funder is “committed to racial justice and equity, both externally through our programming and communications, and internally through our organizational culture and operations.”
Grants for LGBTQ, Women, and Racial Justice
SDP’s Community Grants and Giving program prioritizes “LGBTQ+ programs directed toward serving marginalized communities, including LGBTQ+, youth, people of color, women, elderly and people living with AIDS.” Grantees and funded projects typically align with SDP’s seven Pillars of Justice, which include:
- Disability Justice
- Economic Justice
- Environmental Justice
- Gender Justice
- Health Justice
- Racial Justice
- Reproductive Justice
SDP awards as many as 40 grants a year. While many grantees operate in the San Diego area, grantees elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad have also received support. This funder does not support individuals, capital campaigns, political campaigns, organizations with annual budgets of over $1 million or “programming that does not center on LGBTQ individuals.” The program offers both project and general operating support and runs an annual application program that opens in October of each year. Check the program page for updated guidelines and due dates.
Past grantees include New Jersey’s Sam and Devorah Foundation for Trans Youth, FilmOut San Diego, Children of the Sun Foundation Uganda, San Diego’s Gay Men’s Spiritual Retreat and the Pacific Arts Movement, among others. SDP also provides ongoing support to the San Diego Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.
It is worth noting that SDP also runs “multiple year-round education, advocacy, and community service programs” and runs a Training Institute that serves “businesses, schools, service providers, and agencies in the San Diego region.”
Important Grant Details:
Detailed information about the sizes of this funder’s grants is unavailable, but it has awarded some grants in the amount of $10,000.
- While most grants support LGBTQ-serving organizations in San Diego with budgets of less than $1 million, some grants do support organizations in other parts of the U.S. and around the world.
- This funcer’s work centers on LBTQ-serving organizations, but it conducts its grantmaking through a Pillars of Justice Lens, which is inclusive of all marginalized groups.
- SDP accepts grant applications for a single annual grantmaking cycle and posts updated guidelines and due dates on its Community Grants and Giving each year in the fall.
- See lists of past grantees by year at the bottom of its Community Grants and Giving page.
Submit general inquiries to SDP via its contact page or reach out to a staff member using the online directory.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
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