Horizons Foundation

Horizons emerged in 1980 as the philanthropic arm of the Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA), a group of gay and lesbian entrepreneurs who wanted a vehicle for channeling LGBTQ donations towards community needs. One of the foundation’s first USD 500 grants went to the pioneering Lesbian Rights Project (now the National Center for Lesbian Rights), which was then in its infancy. Reflecting on the impact of the Horizons grant 25 years later, NCLR founder Donna Hitchens told the San Francisco Chronicle, “[It] was critical to our survival.”

During the 1980s, Horizons was at the forefront of philanthropic funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs and services, including the Kaposi Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation (which became the San Francisco AIDS Foundation) and Project Open Hand, which began in 1985 as a one-woman initiative to deliver meals to people living with AIDS. Over the course of two decades, as the AIDS epidemic created an enormous need for funding in the Bay Area, Horizons continually stretched its grantmaking to the limits of its capacity, deferring efforts to grow its endowment.

In 2005, with its endowment standing at USD 1 million – roughly equal to its annual grantmaking budget – Horizons began to focus on a long-term funding strategy to move beyond what executive director Roger Doughty described to the San Francisco Chronicle as “the cycle of scarcity.” That year, Horizons launched the LGBTQ Community Endowment Fund as a permanent funding resource to be built mainly through legacy giving. By 2020, the fund was valued at USD 15 million. Through its ambitious Now and Forever Campaign, Horizons intends to secure legacy commitments of USD 250 million by 2025.

The need to increase legacy giving throughout the LGBTQ movement is underscored by the 2019–2020 Funders for LGBTQ Issues Tracking Report, which estimates that LGBTQ nonprofits receive just 23 cents of every USD 100 awarded in U.S. foundation grants. To this end, Horizons leads the National Task Force on LGBTQ Planned Giving, which provides resources for LGBTQ organizations across the country to develop legacy giving programs.

In an interview with Philanthropy Today, Doughty attested to the urgency of this work, describing the Stonewall generation as “the single best planned-giving demographic we will ever see” – a momentous opportunity to build the long-term resources necessary to realize Horizons’ vision for “a world where all LGBTQ people live freely and fully.”

Contributor: Erin Brown