By Roger Doughty–
Founded in 1980, Horizons is the world’s first community foundation that is of, by, and for LGBTQ people. We invest in LGBTQ nonprofits, strengthen a culture of LGBTQ giving, and build a permanent endowment to secure our community’s future for generations to come. Ultimately, we aim to create a world where all LGBTQ people live freely and fully.
Next year is a big one for us—2020 is our 40th anniversary. As we look forward to the momentous occasion, we also look back on the incredible year that was 2019. At the annual Horizons Gala on October 5, we’ll celebrate this year’s important moments while we raise critical funds that allow us to continue our important work into our 40th anniversary and far beyond. We hope that you will be able to join us.
One of this year’s important moments was on Give OUT Day, Horizons’ national day of giving for the LGBTQ community. Together, we made history, raising $1.1 million for over 475 nonprofits—the first time that so many LGBTQ nonprofits raised so much through a single-day campaign. Organizing Give OUT Day is one way that Horizons invests in LGBTQ nonprofits while also strengthening our community’s rich culture of giving. I encourage you to read more about this success in this spread.
Though we should celebrate this success, we must also remember that our community still has a long way to go. This is true even in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a reputation as a welcoming place for the LGBTQ community. Though many in our community are thriving, many face significant obstacles to participating fully and equally in society and to accessing programs and services to meet fundamental needs.
This is exactly what we found in our LGBTQ Community Needs Assessment, which we released this year—another important moment for the foundation and our community. The Needs Assessment investigated critical areas of need like safety, economic and housing security, medical and mental health care, drug and alcohol recovery, legal assistance, community connection and social life, and civic engagement. See some of the top-line findings in the infographic in this spread.
As our 40th anniversary inches closer, I encourage you to learn more about Horizons and get involved at https://www.horizonsfoundation.org/
Thank you for being in community with us.
Roger Doughty is the President of Horizons Foundation.
It’s easy to create your Legacy of Pride with Horizons, the nation’s oldest LGBTQ community foundation. Your gift fuels LGBTQ organizations that help all of us in the Bay Area and beyond to live with pride, dignity, justice, and joy.
Change Our World Forever
Since 1980, Horizons Foundation has been meeting the needs, securing the rights, and celebrating the lives of LGBTQ people in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The Foundation has helped thousands of people in need to receive lifesaving or life changing services from hundreds of organizations, and has made great strides towards real equality and full inclusion.
Horizons’ work is far from done, however. Many LGBTQ people—even in the relatively progressive Bay Area, as Roger Doughty mentions in this issue—still experience widespread discrimination, violence, economic inequality, illness, and isolation. LGBTQ youth, elders and the most vulnerable people in our community need our support now, and will for the foreseeable future. While we cannot predict what challenges we will face, we do know that if we act today—with the resources we have—we can change our world.
The historic Now and Forever Campaign will ensure that nonprofits have the funding they need to serve and advocate for the LGBTQ community, here in the Bay Area and further afield. Now in the Campaign’s second phase, Horizons has set a goal so audacious as to be unprecedented in the LGBTQ movement: by 2020, Horizons Foundation will have secured a minimum of $100 million in legacy commitments from our community, for our community.
This campaign will:
• create permanent resources for our community (through the LGBTQ Community Endowment Fund) to face our current challenges and the challenges we cannot predict;
• mobilize increased, dependable, long-term support from LGBTQ people for organizations serving and advocating for LGBTQ people;
• ensure a strong, enduring philanthropic institution dedicated to the LGBTQ community—forever.
By including Horizons in your estate plans, these gifts will both help to meet our community’s immediate needs and provide for future generations. To learn more about how you can support the Now and Forever Campaign, phone 415-398-2333 or visit http://tiny.cc/6h2ucz
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