Through our Southern Equality Fund, we provide a pipeline of resources – including direct funding and training – to Southern LGBTQ folks doing heroic organizing in their hometowns. If you’re on this page, you’re likely seeking funding for your work, and you’ll find all the information you need to apply to the Southern Equality Fund below.
Updates to the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Process
Update May 22
We opened this round of the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Program on May 21 and on May 22 at 8:30pm closed the application for general Emergency Assistance Grants after receiving the number of applications that reached our maximum funding allocation for this phase. Please check back for the next round of funding in early June. Thank you to all for your ideas, passion, and support as we work to move resources to support LGBTQ Southerners. We know this is a challenging time, and we’re sending our strength, love, and support.
Applications remain open for Emergency Assistance Grants and Community Response Grants for LGBTQ people living in the Charleston, SC area. Scroll down to read more about those applications.
COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Program
As the nation confronts the significant and unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Campaign for Southern Equality has created a rapid response grant round to quickly route funds to individuals, families, and community organizations across the LGBTQ South. The grant round will be distributed through CSE’s Southern Equality Fund. In the first three rounds, we moved $85,000 across all 13 Southern states, and beginning on Thursday, May 21 we will begin accepting applications for an additional $125,000.
This special grant round has three grant categories:
Emergency Assistance Grants for Individuals and Families
LGBTQ Southerners are now able to apply for immediate financial support of $100. The easy application process is designed to move funds quickly to LGBTQ Southerners who are already experiencing the health and financial impacts of the pandemic, with a focus on those who are at particularly high risk. Applicants can use the funding for basic needs like groceries, rent/mortgage payments, prescriptions or medical bills, prevention supplies, and more. If you received an Emergency Assistance Grant in the first round, you are not eligible to apply in subsequent rounds. By the end of June, CSE will have distributed a total of $145,000 in Emergency Assistance Grants of $100 to LGBTQ Southerners.
Live in the Charleston, SC Area?
Our partners at We Are Family are providing $3,500 in funding to support Emergency Assistance Grants for LGBTQ people living in the Charleston, SC area. If you live in the area, please apply using this link.
Apply for a Charleston, SC Area Grant
Live Anywhere Else in the South?
Note: We opened this application on May 21 and on May 22 at 8:30pm closed the application after receiving the number of applications that reached our maximum funding allocation for this phase. Please check back for the next round of funding in early June. Thank you to all for your ideas, passion, and support as we work to move resources to support LGBTQ Southerners. We know this is a challenging time, and we’re sending our strength, love, and support.
COVID-19 Community Response Grants
The application for Community Response Grants will be limited to projects supporting the Charleston, SC area and is funded by our partners at We Are Family.
Anyone can apply for a grant of up to $500 to fund a project in the Charleston, SC area to meet the needs of LGBTQ Southerners in response to COVID-19. Whether it’s a project focused on connecting LGBTQ elders with meals or tech assistance, an initiative to connect people virtually to build community, an effort to address mental health challenges that will be exacerbated by social distancing, or something else, we’re looking forward to reading applications. By the end of June CSE will have distributed a total of nearly $30,000 in Community Response Grants of up to $500.
Frontline Grants to Direct Service Providers
Staff from the Campaign for Southern Equality will direct grants to frontline organizations that provide direct services to LGBTQ Southerners at high risk of being impacted by COVID-19.
By the end of June CSE will have distributed a total of nearly $20,000 in Frontline Grants.
Special Thanks
The Campaign for Southern Equality is grateful for our partner organizations and donors across the South who are helping to support the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Round.
Big thanks to Gender Benders, Southern Vision Alliance, Blue Ridge Pride, We Are Family, and the Families and Workers Fund, a funders collaborative that includes the Ford Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and Open Society Foundation for their donations for Emergency Assistance Grants. And, for their support of the Southern Equality Fund and the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Program, thank you to foundations including Arcus Foundation, Freeman Foundation, Laughing Gull Foundation, Amy Mandel Fund, the Out in the South Initiative of Funders for LGBTQ Issues, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.
Donate to Support the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Round
Want to donate to Campaign for Southern Equality’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Round? Click here and your gift will go directly to a grant supporting LGBTQ Southerners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Southern Equality Fund: General Grants
The Campaign for Southern Equality has paused general grantmaking for 2020 and is directing all Southern Equality Fund resources to the COVID-19 Rapid Response grant round. Please consider applying for a Community Response grant.
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