LGBTQI+ movements face new funding crisis. Will philanthropy step up?

Matthew Hart is Executive Director of the Global Philanthropy Project, an organization focused on increasing and improving global LGBTQI+ funding.

Amid the daily shocks - the shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development, the executive orders attacking trans people, the discriminatory rhetoric by politicians that casts equality as a threat to individual rights - it’s been easy to miss a simple truth: LGBTQI+ movements have been here before.

The history of the community is a story of resilience, from organising around the global HIV/AIDS epidemic to mobilising in response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda and everything in between.

So when it became clear that we would face another defining moment with LGBTQI+ movements coming under a severe funding threat, we did what queer and trans people do when under attack: we get organised and we fight back.

The Global Philanthropy Project, focused on increasing and improving global LGBTQI+ funding, turned to our donor community.

By last November, we had secured $100 million in pledged new funding as part of our Fund Our Futures campaign, an initiative aiming to counter funding cuts to LGBTQI+ movements globally.

As the U.S. election results rolled in, we got ready for the turbulence of 2025 slightly comforted that despite the inevitable oncoming losses, at least some funds would keep moving.

Even though we were ready, the cruelty of this moment is searing.

All Out, an organisation dedicated to the rights and freedoms of global LGBTQI+ individuals, recently shared survey results finding that 75% of their partners reported increased risks to life, health, or safety of community members as a direct result of the U.S. funding freeze, with nearly a third of All Out’s partners on the brink of shutting down their operations.

In Uganda, an informal survey of 127 nonprofits addressing LGBTQI+ issues and other at-risk groups, conducted by the Uganda Key Populations Consortium, revealed that 97% of them had lost nearly all their funding due to the USAID cuts.

The Global South and East have been hit particularly hard. Between the U.S. cuts and another set of extremely consequential cuts by the Dutch government, GPP estimates that more than one in every four dollars (at least 27% of total funding) in the Global South and East has been lost by LGBTQI+ movements fighting for their lives and their rights.

Move fast, be flexible 

As LGBTQI+ movements are increasingly abandoned by governments, philanthropy must step up.

The first and most important thing that foundations can do is move new, big, flexible funding to LGBTQI+ organisations on the frontlines. They can move swiftly to resource organisations facing sudden crackdowns, activists being targeted by governments, and services abruptly and unconscionably halted by malign actors.

Foundation leaders often speak of preserving their endowments for a rainy day - that day has come and LGBTQI+ and HIV movements are now in the midst of a ferocious hurricane season.

In this time of crisis, organisations cannot afford to wait for the next funding round or submit lengthy justifications for why their survival matters.

We saw many funders increase spending in 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic. We need the same urgency and boldness for this moment: a global polycrisis with human rights, public health, democracy, and climate under attack.

Next, there must be unprecedented coordination across the philanthropic sector. When funding is scarce, we must make sure it is distributed strategically, ensuring that all communities receive the support they need.

Coordination and communication across institutions, funding programme areas, geographic focus, and donor strategy are necessary to sustain and defend infrastructure built over the last two decades.

Finally, long-term support will be pivotal.

Anti-rights organisations receive a continual flow of funds from political and faith-based backers, and conservative donors give long-term and renewing financial support. Meanwhile, progressive organisations face ongoing precarity.

Long-term (5+ year) grants are crucial to ensure that LGBTQI+ movements can work with certainty, adapt to the changing conditions, and plan effectively for the future.

When in doubt about the strength of the anti-rights movements consider this figure: Just three anti-LGBTQI+ organisations had a greater income than the entire global LGBTQI+ movement in the years 2021-2022.

Under the second Trump administration it is likely that anti-LGBTQI+ funding will rise.

In the months ahead attacks on our community will intensify.

Already in Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has banned Budapest Pride. LGBTQI+ groups across the globe are already reporting increased vulnerability to violence.

The philanthropic sector stewards resources that could be transformational if it chooses to take decisive, principled, and strategic action. It’s time for those who champion inclusive democracy to take a bold step up.