The Global Philanthropy Project and ILGA World are thrilled to announce the launch of LGBTI Pathways. This groundbreaking global project aims to identify and catalyze pathways to increased and improved funding for LGBTI communities around the world.

Officially launched at the Pan Africa ILGA Conference in Mauritius on 2 August 2023, the two partner organizations, activists and donors from across the continent and beyond celebrated the start of something truly transformative. 

LGBTI Pathways will shape the quality and quantity of resources for LGBTI people worldwide by undertaking a comprehensive financial gap analysis and movement(s) needs assessment of the state of global funding for LGBTI issues through regional surveys of the LGBTI movement. 

Each region will produce a series of useful products that include regional analyses of movement needs and priorities, and a global meta-analysis will be the outcome of the 3.5-year project. Crucially, every stage of Pathways will be movement- and donor-led and informed – for example, the regional surveys and analyses will be led by regional organizations and advised by regional advisory groups selected through an open-call process.

The LGBTI Pathways project is the culmination of many years of participatory research projects led by GPP and our members and partners. The project represents our collective learning on their impacts, their utility for different stakeholders and so on. Several research projects have been undertaken in recent years to highlight current funding levels, the needs and priorities of specific parts of the movement, and critical funding gaps – to influence and inform policies and decision-making of funders and the development sector. These include: 

• the Global Resources Report (global donor tracking); 
• the State of Intersex Organizing and the State of Trans Organizing reports (global civil society surveys); and, 
• ILGA-Europe’s European and Central Asia LGBTI funding assessment (regional civil society survey). 

These projects pointed towards the potential of a global project that gathers data on the needs of  the LGBTI movement across each major region and compares it to donor tracking data from the Global Resources Report. A project that would provide pathways for current and future funders to direct their resources to address the needs and priorities identified within the different parts of the international LGBTI movement, and to where funding gaps are most critical, impact can be best had, and synergies can be created for shared advocacy with grantmakers and civil society movements. 

The call for Global Advisors is open until 15 September 2023, and we seek dedicated, thoughtful activists and donors to guide the direction of Pathways and its research and help oversee the regional surveys that will soon follow.