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12 LGBTQ+ Organizations To Support During Pride Month & Beyond

Make your money count.

by Mariella Mosthof and Bustle Editors
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
LGBTQ+ Organizations to donate to during Pride Month & always.
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It’s not really summer until you have your plan for Pride ready to roll. A month-long celebration of the LGBTQ+ community and its history, Pride is objectively the best party of the year. It’s also, as you likely know, a commemoration of the fight for queer liberation, led by transgender women and femmes of color. Over 50 years after the Stonewall Riots, many activist groups and charities continue that work all year round, not just in June. Finding LGBTQ+ organizations to donate to this Pride is another way to celebrate these communities and ensure human rights for all.

Whatever kind of issue you’re personally passionate about — whether that’s accessible healthcare, prison abolition, or immigration reform — there’s likely a queer-led nonprofit doing that work that could use your support. If you prefer to open your wallet for people directly, you can always search GoFundMe for campaigns looking to raise money for transition-related care or family-building or to offset the cost of job or housing discrimination — which LGBTQ+ folks didn’t even have legal protections against until a 2020 Supreme Court ruling. If making donations isn’t feasible right now, you could also see if your local mutual aid needs help reaching out to your LGBTQ+ neighbors.

Here are some LGBTQ+ organizations to donate to this Pride.

Callen-Lorde Community Health Center

The Callen-Lorde Community Health Center goes back as far as Pride itself. Founded in New York in 1969 as the St. Marks Clinic, Callen-Lorde combined forces with Gay Men’s Health Project in 1983 to become the Community Health Project. Eventually, it was renamed after singer and safer sex advocate Michael Callen and poet-activist Audre Lorde.

Callen-Lorde has been on the front lines of LGBTQ healthcare for the past five decades, pioneering HIV/AIDS treatment, transgender care, and LGBTQ health research that extends far past its home base in New York. Advocating for social change on behalf of queer people everywhere, Callen-Lorde also works to train the global medical community on how to better provide ethical, compassionate, and competent care for LGBTQ communities. You can donate to Callen-Lorde here.

Sylvia Rivera Law Project

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) has been working on behalf of low-income transgender and gender-nonconforming people of color since 2002, the year Stonewall veteran Sylvia Rivera died. SRLP, according to its website, "works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence." It does this by acknowledging the intersection of racial, social, and economic injustice and advocating for the basic human safety rights of the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ community. This includes improving access to social, health, and legal services. You can donate to SRLP here.

Southern Fried Queer Pride

Southern Fried Queer Pride (SFQP) supports Black queer and QTPOC communities in the South through the arts, producing over 50 events a year. Based in Atlanta, the non-profit distributes “social, human, and financial capital” to communities without access to those resources, curates “immersive” art programming, and incubates leadership for emerging artists in the South. You can donate or become a sponsor here, or shop their store here.

Ali Forney Center

The Ali Forney Center (AFC) was established in 2002 and has since grown into the largest agency dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth homelessness in the country. According to its website, AFC assists "nearly 2,000 youths per year through a 24-hour Drop-In Center which provides over 70,000 meals annually, medical and mental health services through an on-site clinic, and a scattered site housing program." Headquartered in New York, AFC works to provide shelter, clothing, hygiene supplies, employment and education assistance, and healthcare to LGBTQ youth ages 16-24. You can help their mission here.

SAGE

SAGE is a national advocacy organization that provides services for and amplifies the political concerns of LGBTQ+ elders. By 2030, SAGE estimates that there will be 7 million LGBTQ adults age 65 or older. The lack of support young queer people can face can stretch on into their older years when issues around health and accessibility can become compounded. To ensure continued support for LGBTQ populations as they age, SAGE has set up the first National Resource Center on LGBT Aging and a National LGBT Elder Housing Initiative. They also provide cultural competency training for healthcare providers and others providing services to older adults. You can support SAGE’s mission by donating here.

Black & Pink

Black & Pink is a prison abolition organization founded in 2005. It aims "to abolish the criminal punishment system and to liberate LGBTQIA2S+ people/people living with HIV who are affected by that system, through advocacy, support, and organizing." Black & Pink's programming includes transitional and housing support and a reentry assistance program, along with a pen pal network between members and incarcerated folks which has been a cornerstone of the organization since its inception. You can donate to Black & Pink here.

The Okra Project

The Okra Project is a food justice organization that works to bring “home cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals” to Black trans people dealing with food insecurity. It was founded in December 2018 with the objective of alleviating the loneliness Black trans people can experience during the holiday season, per their website. Since then, they’ve distributed COVID-19 relief funds directly to Black trans people in need, coordinated a mental health recovery program in response to the police killings of Tony McDade and Nina Pop, and in 2021, they revived their Direct Chef Services program, which hires Black trans chefs to cook meals for Black trans people, with COVID guidelines in mind. You can donate here.

Immigration Equality

Immigration Equality is an LGBTQ+ immigrant rights organization that represents and advocates for LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive immigrants seeking safety, fair treatment, and freedom. Founded in 1994, Immigration Equality works on behalf of people living in the more than 80 countries where LGBTQ+ identity or positive HIV status is criminalized or unsafe, by offering direct legal services to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, binational couples and families, detainees, and undocumented LGBTQ+ people. It also works on policy reform by lobbying Congress to pass LGBTQ+-inclusive immigration bills, fighting administrative discrimination against HIV-positive immigrants, and training asylum officers in LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive immigration law. You can donate to Immigration Equality here.

Audre Lorde Project

The Audre Lorde Project (ALP) is a community organizing center for LGBTQ+ people of color. The grassroots effort based in Brooklyn was founded in 1994, and its approach to justice work is unique; ALP teaches communities how to organize amongst themselves, "as a strategic process for building people’s collective power to achieve self-determination and justice,” in addition to staging its own programming. Communities identify their own issues, identify solutions based on collective and direct action, and build coalitions to bring those solutions to life. You can donate to the Audre Lorde Project here.

For the Gworls

Founded in New York, For the Gworls is a Black, trans-led collective that organizes parties to raise funds for Black transgender people. The funds cover rent, gender-affirming care, travel assistance, and other medical costs. You can donate here.

G.L.I.T.S.

The nonprofit G.L.I.T.S., or Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society, was created by Ceyenne Doroshow to uplift and support the LGBTQ+ community with a special focus on transgender sex workers. G.L.I.T.S. offers various forms of support to the LGBTQ+ community in New York and worldwide — including immediate need/crisis support, healthcare, housing, education, and advocacy. You can donate here.

Emergency Release Fund

The Emergency Release Fund is a volunteer-led mutual aid organization that aims to provide interest-free loans to cover bails/bonds for high-risk individuals in New York City. The organization states on its site that “the release of minors, Trans, Gender-Non-Conforming, and Intersex folx, whom we believe to be the most impacted by structural violence” is at the core of its mission. You can donate here.

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