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Fund for Trans Generations Awards $1 Million in Field-Building Grants to Trans-Led Organizations

Feb 5, 2020 | Grantee News & Updates, News & Updates

This January, Borealis Philanthropy’s Fund for Trans Generations (FTG) awarded $1,005,000 in grants to 50 trans-led organizations across the country. 

Launched in 2016, the FTG grows the field of trans-led organizing to support a future where transgender, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people live with freedom, safety, and self-determination.

The Fund prioritizes support for emerging organizations with limited access to national funding resources in order to grow and sustain the field of trans-led organizing. All grantee organizations have budgets less than $300,000. More than half have budgets under $100,000 and, of those, two-thirds have budgets under $50,000. 

“We are proud to be a donor to the Fund for Trans Generations because this fund offers resources and support that help trans-led groups scale up their work, which is rare within philanthropy,” said Hez Norton, Executive Director at the Laughing Gull Foundation. “Offering multi-year, general operating, and capacity-building support to new and emerging organizations is critical to win transformative, long-lasting change. This Fund lights a path forward, which we hope other funders will follow.”

Of the 50 grants awarded, 43 were renewals, to sustain support for trans-led organizations that are organizing to build power in communities, building infrastructure, strengthening their capacity, and launching new programs. FTG staff, advisory committee members, and donors helped identify six new grantees in order to offer more support for faith-based work with a racial justice analysis, disability justice work, work led by Black trans women, and healing justice.

The Fund prioritizes grantmaking that reaches all areas of the country: grantees are based in 24 states, as well as in Puerto Rico. Recognizing existing geographic disparities in funding, 39% of FTG grantees are based in the U.S. South. The Fund continues to support organizations led by and serving communities of color, women and girls, and low-income communities. Nearly half of current FTG grantee organizations are led by trans women and femmes. 

During this grantmaking cycle, FTG grantees emphasized the need to have physical community and office space, to strengthen relationships and and have strategy sessions both within and between organizations, and to center healing spaces for members in regular and ongoing ways. 

FTG grantees also continue to focus on a wide range of issues including health, healing justice, education, criminalization, anti-violence, sexual health and prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, employment, and housing. In particular, grantees described the need to expand programming to address challenges in accessing housing for marginalized trans and gender non-conforming communities.

The FTG is a grantmaking initiative of Anonymous Donors, Arcus Foundation, Laughing Gull Foundation, Ms. Foundation for Women, and NoVo Foundation. For more information about the FTG, please visit the Fund’s page on the Borealis website. The FTG also houses a “Rapid Response” fund for groups responding to unanticipated events and strategic opportunities. Download the FTG Rapid Response FAQ for details.

Please see below for a list of FTG grantees: 

New Grantees:

Grantee Renewals: