GRANT FOCUS

We include grants to organizations or programs that specifically focus on an LGBTI issue or population. This generally does not include funds for programs with a broader focus that may also be inclusive of LGBTI issues or populations.

For example, a human rights organization receiving a grant to provide asylum services to marginalized refugees, open and welcoming of all refugees including LGBTI people, would not be included in the report. If that same human rights organization received a grant to provide asylum services specifically supporting LGBTI refugees, it would be included.

Similarly, we include grants related to HIV/AIDS or other development funding streams (i.e. education, health, gender equality, economic empowerment) that are specifically focused on LGBTI people.

In some cases, donors who track funding to multiple impacted populations have been able to identify a percentage of a larger grant with demonstrated LGBTI focus. We welcome clarifying questions if you are considering the partial inclusion of such grants.

GRANT TIMING

We report based on when grants are awarded, not when funds are disbursed. We are now collecting data for any relevant grants awarded in the calendar years of 2023 and 2024. For multiyear grants, the full (multi-year) amount would be counted in the first year of the award. Please do not include disbursements from multi-year grants awarded in previous years.

DOMESTIC FUNDING

We do not report on LGBTI grantmaking by governments focused within the government’s own country (domestic funding). We document and report on government LGBTI grantmaking for work outside of the country, i.e. overseas development assistance or similar programs.

We do include domestic funding by all other types of donors: foundations, corporate donors, intermediary NGO funders, and multilateral agencies.

FUNDING TO INDIVIDUALS

We do track funding to LGBTI individuals in the form of scholarships and fellowships awarded on the basis of the LGBTI identity, or for LGBTI work. This is not limited to academic activities and often includes items such as travel stipends or scholarships for LGBTI activists attending relevant conferences.

Please do not share the names or other identifying details of individual grantees (instead we encourage listing the recipient as Individual or Multiple Individuals), but any detail you can share about LGBTI population, geography, or other grant focus will be help to ensure the grant can be included.

The Global Resources Report (GRR) grant database is developed predominantly through self-reporting, with participating grantmakers directly providing data on all LGBTI-related grants. When possible, grantmakers provide information on the grantee name, mission, and location as well as grant description, type of support, year, amount awarded for each individual grant, and other details. The following is a list of the types of funders included:

• Private foundations: Nongovernmental and/or nonprofit organizations or charitable trusts whose funding is typically endowed by a family or an individual donor, or through the sale of corporate assets.
• Public foundations: Institutions set up to raise funds from the general public in order to award grants. Some public foundations also function as intermediary funders, receiving funds from other foundations or development agencies in order to regrant those funds to civil society organizations and grassroots groups.
• Intermediary organizations: Nongovernmental and/or civil society organizations (CSOs) operating a range of programs, including the regranting of funds received from foundations or development agencies to other (generally smaller) civil society organizations and grassroots groups.
• Corporate funders: Foundations and grantmaking programs at for-profit organizations.
• Governments: Funding awarded by donor governments through a range of agencies and embassies. This report documents government funding focused on international development efforts to advance LGBTI rights and does not include governments’ domestic funding.
• Multilateral agencies: Organizations formed by multiple countries or entities for the purpose of joint funding or other types of cooperation.
• Anonymous funders: Foundations and funds seeking to maintain anonymity in their giving.

Data from individual donors is not collected unless the funding was awarded through a philanthropic entity, such as a private foundation or a donor-advised fund housed at a foundation.

We recognize that some funders may need to limit detail in funding data, due to security concerns or other reasons. We aim to support funders in sharing as much information as is safely possible with consideration of these concerns, and work with donors with a variety of needs and reporting restrictions. If you have any specific questions about how to document and/or share your data, please contact research@globalphilanthropyproject.org.

• Any detail you can share in the “Grant Description” and “Brief Grantee Description” columns of the reporting template will be a great support to the analysts coding this data. This information will enable increased specificity of issues, strategies, populations, and more.  These descriptions will only be used for aggregated (combined total) analysis and will never be shared publicly.
• Similarly, any detail you can share regarding Grantee Location will greatly enable more detailed analysis and reporting on funding trends, gaps, and opportunities for increased support. This data will also not be reported at the individual grantee level, only in aggregate reporting at the country, regional, and global levels.
• In the case that a grantee name should be anonymized due to safety concerns we encourage funders to share the names with our analysis team if possible. In this case, please indicate “Grantee Name [Anonymous]” and we will use the grantee name only to inform the data analysis on relevant general characteristics of the grantee such as type of grantee. These grantees will appear as Anonymous in the Global Resources Report or any additional materials.

Read more: GPP’s Data Submission and Use Notice.

Global LGBTI funding streams encompass a complex network of intermediary “regranting” organizations that receive funds from donor governments, multilateral agencies, and private foundations and are entrusted to use those resources to make smaller grants to grassroots organizations.

An intermediary/regranting organization is generally a public foundation, or it may be a nongovernmental organization (NGO) operating a range of programs including grantmaking.

This report tracks funds awarded for the purposes of regranting and eliminates double-counting where appropriate. Specifically, when there is data for both a grant awarded to an intermediary for regranting and the grants ultimately awarded by the intermediary, then only the latter set of grants is included in most tabulations and charts.

The data submission sheet includes a number of columns that aim to identify this information.

• In the sheet for foundations, Column A asks for the Funding Source Name. For intermediary funders, this is a space to share where the original funds came from. This helps to enable our analysis of overall funding flows.
• All data submission sheets include columns asking “Will this grant be further regranted to additional organizations? (Y/N?)” and “If the grant will be further regranted, what percentage of the total will be awarded to additional organizations?” These columns are the space to identify that your organization awarded a grant for the purpose of the awardee then using the funds to provide additional grants, and to identify what percentage of the total grant amount is meant for regranting. If this field is not filled in, we use 20% as an overhead cost estimate which would mean that 80% is awarded for regranting.

Given major shifts in the global LGBTI funding landscape in 2025, it may seem less clear why to prioritize documenting the funding flows of 2023 and 2024 amid all of the urgent demands of this time. Here are a few responses aiming to frame the importance of ongoing participation in the Global Resources Report.

• The data is consequential. The Global Resources Report is the most comprehensive resource available on worldwide LGBTI funding, a massive field-wide collaboration designed to provide the best possible information to decision-makers, to identify key funding gaps and opportunities, and to make the case for strategic investments.
• With fewer resources overall, this kind of strategic, data-informed funding is even more important. The report provides powerful data to advocates ranging from grassroots local LGBTI movement leaders to global development actors. Advocates for funding equity regularly use the report to make the case for addressing and resolving funding gaps. Grantmakers use the data to develop strategic funding plans and increase their impacts. Donor governments use the report to inform their foreign affairs funding and policies. Previous editions of this report have catalyzed new funds for LGBTI communities and have been regularly used to better attune LGBTI funding to address unmet needs.
• We anticipate that the funding levels in 2023 and 2024 will mark a high point in global LGBTI funding, building on the previous years’ momentum. We also anticipate that these funding levels will fall sharply in 2025. Documenting 2023 and 2024 will enable donors and LGBTI human rights movements to accurately tell the full story of the impacts of 2025 funding cuts (and the years to come), benchmarking movement resource levels before, during, and after this time of rapidly-shifting conditions.

Please note that September 30th, 2025 is a non-negotiable final deadline. 

We are eager to work with donors during our five-month data collection period (April through September) to support you in sharing data by the cut off date.

DATA PARTNERS

For foundations based or headquartered in the U.S., LGBTI grants data is collected annually by Funders for LGBTQ Issues for inclusion in their domestic annual Resource Tracking Report: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Grantmaking by U.S. Foundations. Funders for LGBTQ Issues is the primary data partner for the Global Resources Report (GRR), sharing grant-level detail for grants focused outside of the U.S. and aggregate (combined total) funding data for grants focused in the U.S. with Global Philanthropy Project to enable a full global funding overview.

Both Funders Concerned About AIDS and Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds are additional data partners for the GRR. These philanthropic networks share member grant reporting data with GPP/the GRR with the explicit permission of the reporting donors.

FUNDING DATABASES & OTHER SOURCES

Direct data submissions may also be supplemented by a review of official disclosure documents, annual reports, press releases, and online grants databases including the 360Giving database of foundation funding in the United Kingdom and the Candid Foundation Maps global dataset for both LGBT and intersex funding.

Government funding is included when the funds focus on countries other than their own. Funding to support domestic programs is not included in our methodology. Likewise, grants to intermediary funders based in-country to regrant for domestic programs are also excluded.

GPP has developed a more extensive guidance document for donor governments participating in the Global Resources Report. Please contact us at research@globalphilanthropyproject.org to request a copy.

The Global Resources Report includes grants made by corporations and other for-profit organizations, and partners with a number of networks for LGBTI-affirming corporations for data solicitation. We encourage corporate donors to share their funding focused on global LGBTI communities, including financial support of Pride events, galas, and other donations to LGBTI causes or organizations. Funds supporting individual LGBTI people, such as scholarships or support to attend relevant LGBTI conferences, are also eligible to be included.