Funding for nonprofits that focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer-focused (LGBTQ+) issues has grown steadily, reaching nearly $560 million in 2019, according to a new report. While that figure represents only 0.13% of the total $426 billion in support nonprofits received that year, funding growth for this sector dwarfed that of non-LGBTQ+ organizations for the five years previous. Between 2015 and 2019, LGBTQ+ organizations saw their funding rise by 46.3%, compared with 24.9% for non-LGBTQ+ organizations.
The report, The LGBTQ+ Index: Measuring Giving to LGBTQ+ Organizations, was released today by the Equitable Giving Lab at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. It establishes an initial baseline of support for these organizations. Subsequent reports will analyze changes in that support.
“Many organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community tend to be much smaller,” Lilly Family School of Philanthropy Associate Director for Research and International Programs Una Osili told The NonProfit Times. “They don’t necessarily have big fundraising operations. Many of them are grassroots organizations, staffed by volunteers and using innovative approaches to build support and momentum. The good news is those organizations are attracting a lot of support and growing and able to accomplish quite a bit in the area, whether it is housing, health care or any number of particular areas they’re working in.”
Chances are that growth has not slowed much since 2019 – the latest year for which the Form 990 information for organizations analyzed was widely available. Since 2019, several factors have highlighted the need to support the community, including an increase in legislation restricting gay and transgender rights, marriage equity and several instances of violence directed at the gay community have likely further boosted support for LGBTQ+ nonprofits.
For example, support for transgender-specific organizations spiked by 194.4% between 2015 and 2019, growing from just under $9.5 million to nearly $28 million as the needs of the transgender community have come into clearer focus in recent years. “Media awareness is a big piece of that,” Osili said. “There’s been not just awareness of the need, but also the gaps. When it comes to homelessness and providing shelter for populations, trans populations face more challenges because they may not be safe in a male shelter or a female shelter. Many organizations are lifting up these needs and in return donors are responding to them.”
Government support has played a significant role in meeting those challenges – even more so than in non-LGBTQ+ nonprofits, on a percentage basis. In 2019, government grants made up 39.9% of total contributions to LGBTQ+ organizations, compared with 33.5% of non-LGBTQ+ nonprofits. While the actual amounts are smaller – $400 million for LGBTQ+ organizations, compared with nearly $187.5 billion for the rest – during the five-year period starting in 2015 the rate of increases of government largesse seen by LGBTQ+ nonprofits has outstripped other organizations.
During 2019, funder priorities regarding LGBTQ+ nonprofits continued to shift. The largest chunk of money went to those with public-society benefit missions (42.9%), followed by human services (23.5%), health (18.4%), arts and culture (8.3%), education (5.5%), religion (1%), international (0.2%) and environmental and animal concerns (0.1%).
“In the past, it was the health organizations that attracted the large donations,” Osili said. “That was primarily because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As we shift gears in this era [there will be] much more focus on the advocacy and civil rights domain, moving the needle on policy. That is where being able to message and tie fundraising appeals into specific moments or movements makes a big difference. Right now, with so much interest in everything from the Supreme Court to maintaining marriage equality, organizations are in a position to really attract significant philanthropic support.”
That said, designations of an organization’s focus are not always cut and dried. “We have this finding – civil rights and advocacy is a huge area of focus among these organizations,” Research Associate for the Women’s Philanthropy Institute and Co-Lead for the LGBTQ+ Index Tessa Skidmore told The NonProfit Times. “Even organizations that aren’t solely dedicated to that purpose have that as part of their mission. They may be providing direct services, such as support with food and housing, and things of that nature, but also engage in advocacy.”
The impact of the report goes beyond the community analyzed. “There is a pattern we see – giving to LGBTQ+ organizations and certain focus areas within it is responsive to events in society, whether policy changes, news events, or even general cultural shifts,” Skidmore added. “To the extent that other types of organizations can identify moments to leverage and tie the work their organization does into current events, that makes them all the more relevant and perhaps appealing to donors.”
The report is part of a series of focuses on subsectors of the nonprofit community. Upcoming indices will include focuses on other historically under-resourced organizations, including those headed by Black and Latinx leaders, according to Osili. The goal is to establish baselines for support of these organizations. A copy of the LGBTQ+ report is available here:
