Texas Pride Community Foundation exists to secure equitable opportunities to thrive for all LGBTQ+ people across Texas for generations to come.
Our Mission
As the leading statewide LGBTQ+ community foundation, Texas Pride Community Foundation leverages a robust network of donors and organizations to inspire giving in support of dynamic and diverse LGBTQ+ communities.
Our Vision
Secure equitable opportunities to thrive, for all LGBTQ+ people throughout Texas, for generations to come.
Our Values
ENGAGEMENT. We collaborate and communicate with our communities to gain better understanding of how to serve and achieve our mission.
TRUST. We responsibly and effectively steward our relationships and resources to mutually benefit our grantees, donors, and community to create positive and lasting change.
INTEGRITY. We maintain the highest standards of ethical behavior, transparency, and accountability in all our actions.
SOCIAL JUSTICE. We actively and authentically co-create equitable access, inclusion, and opportunity in partnership with communities we serve, centering those with the greatest need and those who have been historically disadvantaged and underserved at the intersections of identity.
Our Racial and Social Justice Journey
Since our inception, Texas Pride Community Foundation has prioritized intersectional funding and LGBTQ+ community building. Today, a significant percentage of grants from Texas Pride serve People of Color and/or People of transgender / gender non-binary experience. Most face challenges as a direct result of multiple inequities: racism, ageism, homophobia, genderism, housing discrimination, benefits denial, predatory lending, employment barriers, and inequalities in the education and the criminal justice systems.
Texas Pride’s work must reflect the dynamic and diverse makeup of our communities and be broad enough to address their full suite of dreams and needs. We can’t be an effective LGBTQ+ focused community foundation for Texas without tackling racism and injustice. Pursuing equity and justice is our work, however no single organization can end poverty or undo racism and other oppressions on its own. Therefore, we pursue creating coalitions and participating in strong collaborative initiatives to make communities stronger for all.
There is no alternative to our commitment to racial equity in today’s divisive, polarized, and challenging cultural and social context, which is particularly affecting people of color. Our racial equity work must expand and deepen to make the kind of impact that will get us closer to the just world that we seek. Lives and livelihoods are at stake, and waiting is not an option. We continue to transform our work to center racial equity throughout our mission, structure, internal culture, programs, practices, and investments.
Our board signs with hundreds of organization on two open letters; Combat Racial Violence and Calling for Transformational Change in Policing. Together we commit action against racism, racial violence and police ineptitude in response to a litany of horrific incidents against Black Americans.
What We Do
Grants - Texas Pride’s listening grant making is designed to learn more about the community and the potential of grantee organizations in addressing community needs. We refrain from prescribing specific outcomes and instead provide general operating support, occasionally for specific capacity initiatives, encouraging potentially different kinds of success that come from investment in community or grassroots knowledge, expertise, and ingenuity. Learning from this grant making can help set baselines, determine future possible directions, and spur additional giving to Texas Pride to replicate successes and encourage more innovation. Please see Texas Pride's Grants for our current funding priorities and to learn more about our grant process.
Community Needs - Texas Pride will engage in ongoing dialogue with community leaders, grantees, and donors to continually assess the current environment and unaddressed needs of LGBTQ+ people in Texas. It will actively determine in partnership with the community the populations and areas of need to focus funding while building baselines for creating and evaluating outcomes in the future.
Community Building - With our state-wide view of LGBTQ+ Texas, Texas Pride strives to fulfill a strategic role, giving voice to all perspectives in LGBTQ+ discourse by addressing issues of racism, sexism and gender normatism that negatively impact the Texas LGBTQ+ community and are considered threats to our community’s well-being and future.
History
In 2013, Texas Pride founders, inspired by other community foundations around the U.S. established to support LGBTQ organizations in various regions, began the conversation with leaders across Texas about a community fund for LGBTQ+ Texas. After two years of evaluation, Texas Pride Community Foundation was incorporated in 2015 as an LGBTQ+ focused community foundation for Texas.
Through a campaign launched in 2016, 100 hundred individuals, couples and families signed on as First Hundred Funders with three-year financial commitments of $3,000 - $100,000 to support Texas Pride Community Foundation. These commitments were instrumental in launching Texas Pride Community Foundation as the LGBTQ+ community foundation of Texas. Through this generous support, we began our annual Community Grants Program and have been able to respond with Emergency Funds.
In 2017, in advance of our inaugural year of grantmaking, Texas Pride conducted the first-ever, state-wide LGBTQ+ community needs assessment for the State of Texas. With a generous Planning Grant from Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Texas Pride contracted and collaborated with The University of Texas at Dallas to create, implement and produce IMPACT! Texas Needs Assessment. Results from the study were first revealed at a TPCF Austin Town Hall, held in the state capital on June 13, 2018. The full research report and summary are available on this site.