With input from LGBTQ community members, nonprofit leaders, and donors, we created a fund to increase the quality of life for LGBTQ people and their families. Andy Kopplin, President & CEO, Greater New Orleans Foundation
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Introduction In launching the LGBTQ Fund in 2016, we were particularly moved by the Out in the South Report, which had been released by Funders for LGBTQ Issues a few years prior. The report shared that while the South had more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) adults than any other part of the country, the region received just 3-4% of domestic funding for LGBTQ issues. LGBTQ people in the South were also among the most likely to be experiencing poverty. This wasn’t fair or right, and we knew we could help change it. We also knew members of our community were eager to help—for a year, we had been raising funds in the wake of the devastating Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, which claimed the lives of 49 people at a LGBTQ nightclub. Our donors wanted to continue to support our LGBTQ community, not just in moments of tragedy. We worked with the input of LGBTQ community members, nonprofit leaders, and donors to shape the focus of the fund. Together, we decided to offer funds to organizations that increase the quality of life for LGBTQ people and their families, particularly elders, transgender youth, and adults of color, LGBTQ people from low-income communities, and LGBTQ people who are disabled. The LGBTQ Fund prioritizes work that: • Advocates for policies that improve the quality of life for LGBTQ people and their families. • Provides LGBTQ people and families with high-quality, well-coordinated, culturallycompetent direct services. • Builds the cultural competency of “mainstream” organizations that serve LGBTQ people. We are proud to share the stories of some of the organizations the fund has supported over the years. You may notice that many of the people we spoke to use the word “family” in describing their work. It is clear that these organizations form a loving, sometimes lifesaving net around their community. Supporting the LGBTQ fund means strengthening that net. We invite you to hear directly from those leading this work in these pages, then join us in our collective pursuit of equity. With gratitude,
Andy Kopplin President & CEO, Greater New Orleans Foundation
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Why the LGBTQ Fund Matters
42% 3 in 10 of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year
transgender people report they postponed or avoided medical treatment due to discrimination
Trevor Project
Center for American Progress
60%
of Black LGBTQ youth reported discrimination based on their race/ ethnicity in the past year 4
Trevor Project
30% of LGBTQ youth have experienced food insecurity in the last month Trevor Project
Our grantees tell us often that the LGBTQ Fund — robust resources dedicated to supporting the LGBTQ community — is essential for their operations and success. We wanted to give them the chance to tell you, too.
The funds give people a right to be human, a right of being without any type of scrutiny and or judgment....There’s no veil that is needed when a person feels free in a space, and that space was given to them by funding from philanthropists through the Foundation.
Quite honestly, I don’t know that I have a lot of spaces or funders that I could go to, to ask to get support for this specific kind of work and get it...It is critical that we have funds like this, to provide people with the necessary resources for us to serve LGBTQ young people.
Sy’ria Jackson, President, LGBT Community Center
Dr. Rashida Govan, Executive Director, New Orleans Youth Alliance (NOYA)
We started the very first Gender Clinic in the state of Louisiana. We opened in 2018 and now we serve over 1,500 people of trans experience from seven states in the regional South. If you want to know what the impact of the Foundation funding looks like, it looks like that. And though other clinics have now opened since we started offering gender-focused services, we remain the only one in the state that is both staffed and developed by a majority of people of trans experience. Dietz, Gender Clinic Lead Patient Navigator, on Crescent Care’s Gender Focused Clinic
See more stories from some of our grantees → 5
LOUD members
LGBTQ FUND GRANTEE
LOUD: New Orleans Queer Youth Theater LOUD: New Orleans Queer Youth Theater co-director indee mitchell loves their job. They are trying not to do it much longer. They believe in the power and agency of young people, and that means valuing their work and eventually, putting them in charge. Every youth member of LOUD is paid for their participation in the theater program. They make either $15 or $20 an hour, depending on the stage of the program they’re in—the “apprenticeship,” a workshop about theater, power, privilege, and oppression, or “the ensemble,” the team that writes and stars in LOUD’s shows. “We’re in this really beautiful, interesting moment of transition, where we’re really thinking about the future of the organization, the program, and who is going to be holding this work in the future,” mitchell says.
There’s not a lot of resources in New Orleans that are specifically geared toward LGBTQ folks...And these are people who really need it. indee mitchell, LOUD co-director
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In the years to come, they hope to fully hand over responsibility for LOUD to its youth staff. LOUD was created in 2013, and each year, a small group of people between 15-21 years old come together to learn, organize, and create theater together. So far, the program has reached about 50 young people. They have written, produced, directed, and acted in five full-length plays so far, and in the years they have not done a full show, they put on informal solo performances. Their most recent performance was “The Scarlet Rebellion.” As indee put it, it was a “really beautiful show that was the story of this group of young, queer, and trans folks who were fighting against an oppressive government.” To prepare for shows, LOUD meets weekly at the LGBT Community Center or the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans. Sessions begin with a group meal. This is important, mitchell says. For one, it helps everyone show up on time. But more importantly, young people need a chance to center, fuel physically, and connect, because the process of creating theater through LOUD can be intense. LOUD’s performances are rooted in the storytelling and experiences of the group. Sometimes, actors are working through trauma or difficult experiences.
As they work through their own stories, the young people of LOUD are also learning about the broad historical, political, and social forces surrounding their lives and their work. LOUD is committed to helping them develop as leaders, fighting oppression, and building a space where young queer and trans people feel loved. “I think being a young person in general is a hard time,” mitchell says. “You’re figuring out your whole life. And then a lot of a lot of folks in our community don’t have the same kind of family or support.”
It’s really a community of support and kinship. indee mitchell, LOUD co-director
Support from the Foundation has helped bolster that community, and help cover LOUD’s two main expenses: payment to youth and adult staff to create, plan, lead, and perform, and shared food for when they meet to sustain that work.
But LOUD, mitchell says, “becomes a family really quick...it’s beyond just like, ‘we made that thing together that one time.’ It’s really a community of support and kinship.” Support from the Foundation has helped bolster that community, and help cover LOUD’s two main expenses: payment to youth and adult staff to create, plan, lead, and perform, and shared food for when they meet to sustain that work. “There’s not a lot of resources in New Orleans that are specifically geared toward LGBTQ folks,” mitchell says. “And these are people who really need it.” Many of LOUD’s ensemble members, they explain, “have experienced homelessness or houselessness. A lot of them have been kicked out of their family homes.” At LOUD, though, “they can find space to physically, literally be safe, and also like a space for them to grow and push themselves, a space where they can find opportunities for jobs, for mentorship, for friendship, for their next meal, sometimes places to stay.” In that space, theater provides the opportunity for young people to truly be themselves. “It’s like a healing practice,” mitchell says of the group’s process. “It’s freeing.”
LOUD member performing
“LOUD taught me to stand up for myself and other people.”
“I love LOUD; it helped me build lasting relationships and confidence in my craft.”
“LOUD becomes a home for all who enter.”
Ross, LOUD ‘20
Bea, LOUD ‘19
Jada, LOUD ‘19
On LOUD’s Instagram, former and current ensemble members shared what this space has meant to them. 7
Sheri Combs (Left), Madeleine Landrieu (Right)
LGBTQ FUND GRANTEE
Covenant House New Orleans “I’m so used to kids coming in,” says Sheri Combs, “and they’ve been turned away from shelters where, especially if they are transgender, they’re not permitted to be who they are...and so they’re turned back out on the street.” Combs is the human trafficking team leader at Covenant House, the only 24-7 emergency youth residential shelter in our region. There, she says, they welcome young people in, no matter what. Covenant House offers food, shelter, clothing, and wraparound support to young people 16-22 years old, and transgender people of any age, given the lack of other welcoming shelters citywide. Their emergency shelter houses 80 young people, as well as the small children of some residents. In the 24-7 emergency “crisis care” program, residents get health and educational assessments, meals, and support with a job search and life-skills development. Covenant House also offers two additional types of supportive residential programs—an on-site “rights of passage” program with intense support, group meals, and life-skills training, and an off-site apartment program. All residents get medical care through Tulane University School of Medicine and behavioral health services from Children’s Hospital. Covenant House also offers counseling, case management, and helps young people connect to school and employment.
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In 2020, Covenant House worked with around 900 young people. Nearly 500 young people came to the emergency shelter, and there were over 100 in both the on-site and off-site residential living programs. Over a third of all the young people they work with identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ). Combs works specifically with LGBTQ residents. She also works with young people who are survivors of trafficking, many of whom are also LGBTQ. For Combs, this is personal. “I have a unique connection with the kids, because I was a former resident here. I’m a trafficking survivor. And so I know their vulnerabilities. I know what it’s like to feel lost, abandoned, unwanted. And I know the impact of trauma.” Combs takes that trauma seriously. She earned a certification from Georgetown University in trauma-informed care and resilience with LGBTQ youth, then came back to Covenant House and taught her colleagues what she learned. Part of addressing that trauma is building opportunities for residents to simply be together and share in joy. One such opportunity is the “Stride with Pride” drag show. Any resident that wants to participate can choose three songs to perform. Combs takes them out to get clothes, wigs, and makeup. Then, Covenant House prepares a space with a red carpet, a colorful “Stride with Pride” poster, rainbow flags, and flowers. “They make it look like Hollywood,” Combs says.
On the night of the event, all the residents that want to come gather and watch the performers. The first place winner gets a crown, a dozen roses, as well as seventy-five dollars in prize money. Everyone shares pizza and soda. The event is celebratory, but it’s also incredibly meaningful to performers. The 2019 winner wore a floor-length red gown with rhinestones across the top. Before the event, Combs says, “he lacked some self-confidence. He had been through a lot...Stride with Pride gave him the confidence to know it’s okay to be who he is.” Events like Stride with Pride are the result of growth for Covenant House. When Combs was a resident herself years ago, she explains, “we would’ve never had a drag show...and all of our bathrooms being gender neutral? These sort of things would have never occurred. There’s been a lot of changes.”
Stride with Pride
The Greater New Orleans Foundation’s LGBTQ funding supports this work in varied ways—it contributes to the crucial round-the-clock care through the shelter and residential programs, but it also supports events like Stride With Pride. Paying for dresses, wigs, pizza, and flowers meant providing a chance for young people to feel glamorous and powerful in a world that too often tells them they’re not.
By welcoming this change, Covenant House now serves as a critical resource for LGBTQ youth in our community. The support it provides is changing lives. Of the 112 residents in the “rights of passage” program in 2020, for instance, around 90% moved on to stable housing and employment. The Greater New Orleans Foundation’s LGBTQ Fund supports this work in varied ways—it contributes to the crucial round-theclock care through the shelter and residential programs, but it also supports events like Stride With Pride. Paying for dresses, wigs, pizza, and flowers meant providing a chance for young people to feel glamorous and powerful in a world that too often tells them they’re not. For Combs and her colleagues at Covenant House, this is at the heart of their work. “You want these kids to feel unconditional love,” she says.
80
900
Number of people housed in the emergency shelter
Number of young people Covenant House worked with in 2020
112
90%
Number of residents in the “Rights of Passage” Program in 2020
of these people moved on to stable housing and employment 9
Former LGBT Center manager Nia Faulk marching with the Black Trans Women Circle NOLA (which meets at the Center)
LGBTQ FUND GRANTEE
The LGBT Community Center of New Orleans “We need to talk about the stories of joy,” says Sable Switch. Switch is vice president of the LGBT Community Center, which was founded in 1992. She recalls a moment a few years ago, attending the annual Christmas party of the Trans and Queer (or Questioning) Youth Group of New Orleans, which meets in the Center. “Everybody was sitting around on beanbags on the floor and opening presents. And they had a tree that they decorated with decorations they made themselves. And, you know, it just felt like family.”
The space that we’re providing is something really tangible. It’s not just people coming together having a good time. They’re facing real life-changing situations. LGBTCC President Syria Jackson
Syria Jackson is the president of the Center. Tending to the space that holds this joy is, for her, “a labor of love.” And, she says, “it means a lot to me...to be the first African American woman of trans experience to be in a leadership role.” While moments like that Christmas party are joyful, she notes, there is serious work both behind and within them. Joy can be a lifeline, and not just for the Center’s youngest community members. It welcomes people of all ages and backgrounds. “The space that we’re providing is something really tangible. It’s not just people coming together having a good time. They’re facing real life-changing situations,” she says. Some members of the Center community are battling dire circumstances. Some are unhoused. Some have been turned away by their families, recently or many years ago. Some are facing discrimination and persecution at the hands of employers or the state. The center is a place to connect to resources, advocacy, and community. As treasurer Michael Fletcher, puts it, the Center is also about “a single word: opportunity. It is an opportunity for LGBT people to find others like themselves that aren’t necessarily inside of a bar somewhere. Someplace for people who are new to New Orleans to find others who are like them. And it’s an opportunity for the board and its volunteers to give back.” “Ultimately our goal is to make it feel like a home away from home,” Switch says.
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Today, funding from the Greater New Orleans Foundation tends to this home, which holds around 300 meetings on an average year, ranging from small groups to over 60 people each. The meetings are varied. In addition to the youth group meetings, the Center hosts queer dancing, art therapy sessions, movie nights, gaming meet-ups, support groups, fundraisers, and more. “There would be plenty of times where I don’t think that we would even have the Community Center if we didn’t have the generosity from the Foundation,” Fletcher explains.
The Center is also about a single word: opportunity. It is an opportunity for LGBT people to find others like themselves. Michael Fletcher, Treasurer of SAGE New Orleans “The Foundation’s funding has been responsible for us paying our rent on time, paying our internet on time, making sure that we have not only a community center, but have a safe space that is accessible—for wheelchair accessibility, and also that is accessible to public transportation,” Jackson says. And in providing this concrete financial support, the LGBTQ Fund provides deeply personal support as well. “We see so many youth come through our doors, and they see the space as a second home or a safe space where they can be truly and authentically themselves. So the funds give people a right to be human, a right of being without any type of scrutiny and or judgment. It’s a home away from home, a liberating space. There’s no veil that is needed when a person feels free in a space, and that space was given to them by funding from other philanthropists through the Foundation’s LGBT Fund,” Jackson explains.
Sy’ria (left) and fellow New Orleans performers representing New Orleans culture at the National Gay Pride Parade in New York City
“The Foundation’s funding has been responsible for us paying our rent on time, paying our internet on time, making sure that we have not only a community center, but have a safe space that is accessible— for wheelchair accessibility, and also that is accessible to public transportation,” Jackson says.
She notes that all this is transformative for the Center’s community. “This space itself—the energy that hovers—gives them that opportunity to come into the space as a caterpillar and leave there in some form of a butterfly.”
1992
300
Year the LGBT community center was founded
Average number of meetings at the center each year 11 NOLA Gaymers, a LGBTQ gaming group that meets at the Center
SAGE events
LGBTQ FUND GRANTEE
SAGE New Orleans If Jim Meadows hasn’t heard from a member of the SAGE community in a while, he calls them. Perhaps they used to show up to SAGE’s weekly walking group, but they haven’t been at the last few sessions. Perhaps they were a fixture at the potlucks and stopped showing up. “If someone is missing for a couple of weeks, you know, not pressuring them, but I’’ll say ‘hello, how are you doing?’” SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) New Orleans, which Meadows leads, works against the isolation that some of their community faces. “If you’re an LGBTQ elder,” Meadows explains, “you tend to live alone. A lot of times people move to New Orleans from a small town in the middle of nowhere...we don’t necessarily have relatives in town...a partner may have died, friends may have moved off. So what we’re attempting here is to bring people together, and to not become overly isolated.”
We have people who are scared, and they want places that are welcoming Jim Meadows, Executive Director of SAGE New Orleans
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SAGE’s most popular remedy for isolation is simple—they host monthly “SAGE Table” potlucks. SAGE Table draws about fifty people each month, and it is an intergenerational crowd—a mix of elders and younger volunteers. SAGE has also held more formal intergenerational events, like a LGBTQ panel discussion. “We had younger people talking about what it’s like now,” says Meadows. “And we had folks talking about what was like for them, back when you couldn’t even say the word ‘gay.’” This painful history, and the powerful work done by so many activists and advocates, fuels Meadow’s dedication to his work. He first connected with SAGE as a young volunteer himself, and remains driven to make sure LGBTQ elders have the care they deserve. “I’m very grateful to the Stonewall generation and everyone who came after,” he says. “The fact that they’ve been kind of overlooked? That they’re being fearful about having to go into long term care to where they might be bullied by their roommate or looked down upon? I find it unacceptable.” In addition to their social and educational events, SAGE works to address this fear and the risk of LGBTQ elders being overlooked. “We have people who are scared, and they want places that are welcoming,” Meadows says.
So SAGE offers credentialed training for medical providers and organizations serving older people. These may be “mainstream” organizations that work with all people, but know they have patients or clients that are LGBTQ elders. They are eager to provide more informed care. “We’ve trained hundreds of local healthcare and other service providers who work with LGBT elders in cultural competency. We have our own curriculum,” Meadows says. Meadows also does one-on-one connection between elders and medical care. He recently helped connect a client in need of a kidney transplant with the local chapter of the National Kidney Foundation. The Foundation’s LGBTQ Fund supports this work. Meadows says it doesn’t go unnoticed; fundraising for the LGBTQ community in the South can be difficult.
In recent years, SAGE has used funding from the Foundation to help pay for its programming, from food and cutlery at their potlucks, transportation for seniors who need rides to events, venue rentals for their cultural competency trainings, and more.
We’ve trained hundreds of local healthcare and other service providers who work with LGBT elders in cultural competency. Jim Meadows, Executive Director of SAGE New Orleans “People haven’t invested in us. And when an organization like The Foundation makes that a priority, I think the community is grateful for that.” In recent years, SAGE has used funding from the Foundation to help pay for its programming, from food and cutlery at their potlucks, transportation for seniors who need rides to events, venue rentals for their cultural competency trainings, and more. In his role leading SAGE, Meadows stewards those funds and manages the programs they support. He loves doing it, and he loves the relationships he builds. When he helps elders manage complex issues of housing, healthcare, and family, it is not transactional for him. “It’s the greatest job I’ve ever had, and probably will ever have,” Meadows says. Meadows is helping LGBTQ elders, but he is also growing a community and learning from people with a wealth of experience and great stories to tell. He does not take that work, or those friendships, lightly. He is called to serve those who came before him and pay back their efforts with his care. “I think that we have to do what we can to support them, because they made our lives possible.”
SAGE’s walking group
1,000 Estimated reach during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic through outdoor and virtual events
300
Attendance at a “History of Pride” panel via Zoom. 13
LGBTQ Fund Grant Recipients 504HealthNet
Neighborhood Story Project
ACLU of Louisiana
New Orleans Advocates for GLBT Elders (SAGE)
BlaQ Ballet BreakOUT! Broadmoor Improvement Association Communities In Schools Gulf South Communities In Schools of Greater New Orleans Covenant House CrescentCare First Grace Community Alliance Forum for Equality House of Tulip Imagine Water Works Lambda Center Of New Orleans Last Call
New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation New Orleans Youth Alliance Operation Restoration Orleans, Inc. PFLAG New Orleans Project Lazarus Southern Organizer Academy Teach For America - Greater New Orleans Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival The Order of Care Collective
LGBT Community Center of New Orleans
The SOLID Initiative (fiscally-sponsored by the Forum For Equality)
LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana
Trans and Queer (or Questioning) Youth
Longue Vue House and Gardens
Transgender Inclusive Development, Advocacy and Learning (TIDAL)
LOUD
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New Orleans Film Society
Louisiana State Museum/Louisiana Museum Foundation
VAYLA New Orleans
LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans
Youth Empowerment Project
National Performance Network
Youth Run NOLA
Wake
How can you help? Covenant House, the LGBT Community Center, LOUD, and SAGE are just four of the 42 LGBTQ serving organizations we have supported in the past five years. Many of them rely on our support to continue their critical work. They address urgent healthcare needs and fuel LGBTQ art and storytelling. They provide safe spaces for young people and connect with elders to gather archives that might otherwise be lost. These organizations need our funding now, and they will continue to need it tomorrow. We also hope that more LGBTQ-serving nonprofits will take root in Southeast Louisiana in the coming years; some parishes, to our knowledge, do not yet have formal LGBTQ-serving nonprofits at all. As the scope and impact of these nonprofits grow across our region, so will their need for funds.
That’s why we are creating the LGBTQ Endowment, which will allow us to grant at least $100,000 yearly in perpetuity to LGBTQ serving organizations. We hope you will consider joining us in our efforts to raise $2.5 million for this fund, which will be advised by a committee of LGBTQ community members. Grants from the fund will focus in particular on supporting LGBTQ youth of color, transgender youth and adults of color, and LGBTQ people from lowincome backgrounds. The grants will prioritize assistance for nonprofits’ general operations. We hope you consider standing with these nonprofits by making a gift to the fund. You can give by:
credit card
check
gift of stock
donor advised fund
legacy gift
Whether you’re looking to make a donation, create a partnership, or want to learn more about the Greater New Orleans Foundation LGBTQ Endowment and grantmaking, we would love to connect with you. Please contact Holly Hermes by email at holly@gnof.org or phone at 504-620-5264. We look forward to partnering with you in this urgent and meaningful work.
Holly R. Hermes
Kenneth A. St. Charles, Ph.D.
Principal Gift Officer email: holly@gnof.org office: 504.598.4663 direct: 504.620.5264 cell: 504.439.1756
Vice President for Philanthropy email: kenneth@gnof.org office: 504.598.4663 direct: 504.598.1291
Greater New Orleans Foundation Center for Philanthropy 919 St. Charles Avenue New Orleans, LA 70130 gnof.org office: 504-598-4663 15