The Gay & Lesbian Fund supports programs that serve the needs of children, youth, and families. Because we want to be holistic in our treatment, our funding can be used to provide for the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health of all people in Colorado.
When considering programs to support, we like partners to show evidence of cultural competency for families of nontraditional composition such as single parent households, grandparents as primary caregivers, and same-gender parent households. Cultural competency includes awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills.
The success stories of our Healthy Families grantees are numerous:
- Adoption Alliance provides a range of services to help children find loving, safe homes. The Raising Colorado program matches some of the 7,000 children in Colorado’s foster care system with parents who want to adopt children with special needs.
- The Education Foundation for the Colorado National Guard provides tuition assistance to help offset financial hardships from extended active duty deployment. In addition to helping National Guard members pursue higher education, many of the grants are to spouses and children, too.
- The Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) supports thousands of local teachers by gathering unwanted items from local businesses and offering them at 80 to 90 percent off of retail prices. From composition notebooks and microscope slides, to art supplies and t-shirts, RAFT’s warehouse of recycled and donated materials is making a difference for more than 1,200 teachers and their ability to continue to provide hands-on, interactive learning.
- As Denver’s only daytime drop-in center for women and their children, and transgender women, who experience homelessness and poverty, The Gathering Place provides clean, safe bathrooms and showers along with a healthy meal. For many women, it provides a chance for a new life.
- In We Don’t Waste’s first full year of operation, the Denver nonprofit picked up and delivered more than 700,000 servings of food to hungry people in Denver. The organization collects surplus food from venues, restaurants, caterers, and other food purveyors at no cost, helping to minimize local waste and substantially lower costs for the area nonprofits that feed the needy.
Explore the many ways in which our grantees are building a better Colorado by reading their stories in our “Grantee Stories” section.
Colorado Children’s Campaign
The Colorado Children’s Campaign is the leading voice for Colorado’s 1.2 million children. The organization’s latest “Kids Count in Colorado!” report contains some of the earliest data of its kind about the impact of the recession on children’s lives. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of children living in poverty in Colorado more than doubled, rising faster than any other state in the nation.
