Friends,

Every day in our work at the Campaign for Southern Equality, we connect with grassroots organizers who have exciting ideas about how to transform their communities into more just, more equitable places. But again and again, they face a key obstacle in advancing local change: the money to do their work. 

In response, we created the Southern Equality Fund (SEF) in 2015, which supports and trains Southern LGBTQ people who are organizing in their hometowns. Since 2015 we have awarded more than $250,000 to nearly 300 grassroots Southern groups and organizers across 12 states. We’ve funded the first LGBTQ Pride event in a small town in Northern Alabama, advocacy work focused on trans Latinx women in rural North Carolina, and rapid response organizing efforts related to immigration rights. 

This month we shared what we’ve learned through the Southern Equality Fund with The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a national publication on grant-making and philanthropy nationwide, and we wanted to be sure you saw. Click here to read our full op-ed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, written by Britney Nesbit, who helped lead SEF from 2016 through 2019. 

We know that organizers on the front lines of the South can transform our region — but they need the funding and support to do so. A significant part of our work at the Southern Equality Fund is about creating new ways to move money to these grassroots organizers. 

Britney’s piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy underscores the many lessons that we’ve learned from four years of building and shaping the Southern Equality Fund. I’d love for you to give it a read and share widely. Click here to read the piece. 

Thank you,
Jasmine Beach-Ferrara
Campaign for Southern Equality