Fund: U.S. Fund

Announcing Our Newest U.S. Fund Grantee Partners

The Astraea Foundation is proud to announce our latest round of U.S. Fund grantee partners with $1.4 million in 23 grants going to groups across the U.S. and its claimed territories. Our U.S. Fund supports LGBTQI+ Black and Indigenous communities with flexible, multi-year core support for new grantee partners focused on housing and land acquisition, and climate justice.

The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice is proud to announce our latest round of U.S. Fund grantee partners with $1.4 million in 23 grants going to groups across the U.S. and its claimed territories. Our U.S. Fund supports LGBTQI+ Black and Indigenous communities with flexible, multi-year core support for new grantee partners focused on housing and land acquisition, and climate justice.

Against the backdrop of growing anti-gender violence, more drastic and frequent disasters due to climate change and rampant environmental racism disproportionately impact LGBTQI+ people of color. Our Black and Indigenous communities face increasing violence, uncertainty, and exhaustion. The Astraea Foundation’s U.S. Fund remains rooted in supporting front line communities who will interrupt systems of oppression and build toward a future where our communities will thrive. It is with that guiding principle that the U.S. Fund is partnering with 22 new grantees to support their work on housing and land acquisition, and climate justice.

Four U.S. Fund grantee partners doing this work include:

  • Georgia – Trans Housing Atlanta Program (THAP) is a community-led organization founded and organized by Black trans and non-binary Atlantans. Since its inception in 2014, THAP has been dedicated to offering direct housing, emergency shelter assistance, rental and utility aid, and other crucial resources to support the sustainable housing and income of trans and nonbinary individuals in the region.

  • Florida – The McKenzie Project Inc. (TMPI) caters exclusively to the needs of Black trans and nonbinary people in South Florida by facilitating meaningful conversations about climate and environmental justice, and climate disaster preparedness. They seek to mitigate the effects of increasingly severe weather events and provide responsive support to community members. 

  • Missouri – Our Spot KC provides safe, accepting, and affirming services, programming, and resources to empower the LGBTQ+ community in Kansas City. LGBTQ+ people represent approximately 50% of people experiencing being unhoused in Kansas City. Our Spot KC provides housing, case management, systems navigation support, and mental health services as a baseline safety net for Kansas City’s LGBTQ+ community to thrive and continue to strengthen our movements.
  • Puerto Rico – Albanistería en la Brega Inc. is a Puerto Rican queer women-led non-profit organization that develops DIY and cabinetmaking skills in women (all women), non-binary folks, and girls with the purpose of empowering its participants. It breaks traditional cultural beliefs in the division of labor by sex and reduces the gap in access to non-traditional jobs for women.

The Astraea Foundation’s U.S. Fund advocates for liberation by centering the grassroots leaders closest to both the problem and the solution. For more than 45 years, the fund has focused on the intersections of racial, gender, economic, and reproductive justice movements, centering Black and POC leaders. Now more than ever, the fight for housing and land acquisition, and climate justice needs urgent support, and we are proud to expand the resources available to this critical work.

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2023 U.S. Fund Grantee Partners*

*Note: We do not publicize a number of our courageous grantee partners because of security threats they face in their local contexts, so organizations may be missing from this list.

Housing and Land Acquisition:

The Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom, Georgia

Baltimore Safe Haven, Maryland

Casa Al-Fathiha, Illinois

Our Spot KC, Missouri

THIS Houston

The Knights and Orchids Society, Alabama

Trans Housing Atlanta Program, Georgia

Zami Nobla, Georgia

Climate Justice:

Albanisteria en la Brega, Puerto Rico 

Espicy Nipples, Puerto Rico

Birthmark Doula Collective

The Black Feminist Project, New York

The Black Mycelium Project, North Carolina

Center for Embodied Pedagogy, Puerto Rico

Community Movement Builders, Georgia

Eagle Bear Cultural Center

Earth Guardians

Earthlodge Center, California

Mariposas Rebeldes, Georgia

Sovereign Earth Works, Washington DC

Tender Fruits Collective, Vermont

The McKenzie Project, Florida

Astraea’s newest U.S. Fund grantees!

Our U.S. Fund is Astraea’s longest-standing fund, and we’re excited to introduce you to our latest batch of grantee partners!

We’re excited to share our latest round of U.S Fund grants! These incredible organizations are working to end mass criminalization and incarceration, disrupt systems of oppression, and resist all forms of state violence and white supremacy.

In the last year, Astraea has awarded over $1.5 million in grants to 58 grantee partners in 19 states and Puerto Rico (while Puerto Rico grantee partners have been included in this statistic, we recognize the self-determination and autonomy of the Puerto Rican independence movement). Over 99% of this funding went to LGBTQI People of Color-led organizations working for racial, economic, gender, migrant and reproductive justice. We also launched our first set of Healing Justice grants awarding $60,000 to 14 organizations to support community-based resiliency and survival practices integral to our collective liberation.

Many of our U.S. grantee partners work across movements and are connected by common values and goals—a vision for intersectional, liberatory social justice. Our grantee partners are:

  • Building the local and regional power of Black, Brown, queer, trans, migrant, poor, and working class communities in the South, such as Southerners on New Ground (SONG)’s ‘Free from Fear’ campaign strategy which worked to politicize and engage LGBTQ people to lead migrant justice and anti-criminalization campaigns. Building on the success of that, SONG launched its #EndMoneyBail campaign, which ignited local organizing to focus on eliminating money bail and pretrial detention across the South. It demands that municipalities divest from cages, courts, and police, and invest in community-based solutions, such as needs assessment programs.
  • Pushing for digital rights and privacy for all, such as grantee partner MediaJustice, who joined 34 civil rights, consumer, and privacy organizations in launching public interest principles for robust and comprehensive federal legislation. These guidelines would ensure fairness, prevent discrimination, advance equal opportunity, protect free expression, and hold companies that collect personal data accountable for privacy violations.
  • Empowering, resourcing, and building the leadership of trans People of Color, like Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable and Empowering (TAKE)who work to increase access for and meet the needs of trans Women of Color (TWOC) in Alabama. TAKE advocates for trans friendly policies, organizes to end discrimination, engages in leadership development, and provide peer support groups. In 2017, they opened the TAKE Resource Center, the first space dedicated to providing a safe, nurturing space for TWOC in Birmingham. It is the only center in Birmingham that is Trans focused, Trans led, and fully staffed by TWOC.

Through grassroots organizing and advocacy efforts, our grantee partners are drawing attention to how marginalized LGBTQI people are impacted by enforcement and criminalization; increasing the visibility of healing justice strategies; working to dismantle the criminal justice system; leading campaigns to divest from prison systems; and broadening the racial justice dialogue to include reproductive justice, anti-criminalization and migrant justice strategies.

Please join us in celebrating the work of these resilient and radical grantee partners, and read more about their work in the links below.

U.S. Fund Grantee Partners*

*Note: We do not publicize a number of our courageous grantee partners because of security threats they face in their local contexts, so organizations may be missing from this list.

API Equality – Northern California
California

Audre Lorde Project
New York

Black Alliance for Just Immigration
New York

Black and Brown Workers Cooperative
Pennsylvania

Black and Pink
National

Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project
National

Black Trans Media
New York

Blackbird
National

BreakOUT!
Louisiana

BreakOUT New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice
Louisiana

Circuito de Innovación y Resiliencia Queer
Puerto Rico

Communities United for Police Reform
New York

Community United Against Violence, Inc.
California

Dignity and Power Now
California

El/La Para Translatinas
California

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
California

Freedom Inc.
Wisconsin

Freedom to Thrive
New York

Garden of Peace Project
Pennsylvania

Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network Southeast
Southeast

Girls for Gender Equity
New York

Immigrant Youth Coalition
California

Invisible to Invincible (“i2i”): API Pride of Chicago
Illinois

Law for Black Lives
National

Mariposas Sin Fronteras
Arizona

MediaJustice
California

Mijente
National

Montana Two Spirit Society
Montana

New Voices for Reproductive Justice
Pennsylvania

Out in the Open
Vermont

Peacock Rebellion
California

Power Inside
Maryland

Project South and members of the Southern Movement Assembly
Georgia

Providence Youth Student Movement
Rhode Island

Queer & Trans People of Color Birthwerq Project
Washington

Queer the Land
Washington

Racial Justice Action Center, (SNaP Co and Women on the Rise)
Georgia

SisterReach
Tennessee

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
Georgia

Somos Familia
California

Southern Vision Alliance
North Carolina

Southerners on New Ground & Mijente
Southeast

SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW
Georgia

Stonewall Youth
Washington

Survivors Organizing for Liberation
Colorado

The Knights and Orchids Society
Alabama

Trans Queer Pueblo
Arizona

Trans(forming)
Georgia

Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable and Empowering
Alabama

Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project
California

Women With a Vision
Louisiana

Young Women United
New Mexico

By supporting Astraea, you are creating ecosystems of resistance that are smart, effective, and unique. Join us!

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Women With A Vision

Women With A Vision’s mission is to improve the lives of marginalized women, their families, and their communities by addressing the social conditions that hinder their well being.

Women With A Vision’s mission is to improve the lives of marginalized women, their families, and their communities by addressing the social conditions that hinder their well being. They accomplish this through relentless advocacy, health education, supportive services and community based participatory research.

They envision an environment in which there is no war against women’s bodies, in which women have a space to come together and share their stories. A place in which women are empowered to make decisions concerning their own bodies and lives, where women have the necessary support to realize their hope, dreams, and full potential.

This organization is supported through the LGBTQ Racial Justice Fund, which is housed at Astraea.

Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable and Empowering (TAKE)

TAKE Resource Center is the only center that is Trans focused, Trans lead, and all of the staff members are Trans women of color here in Birmingham, Alabama.

TAKE Resource Center is the only center that is Trans focused, Trans lead, and all of the staff members are Trans women of color here in Birmingham, Alabama. The organization is founded and directed by A Trans woman of color Daroniesha Duncan Boyd. The mission statement of TAKE Resource Center is working together as a community to improve the quality of life for Trans women of color by meeting needs and increasing accessibility. Our job and role at TAKE Resource Center is to assist and provide capacity building support, and to also provide support to agency partners and campaigns, while supporting and coordinating and implementation of the programs and services here at TAKE such as the HELP program which means Health, educational, Living and Prevention, and its Mission of providing Holistic Health, Knowledge, and linkage to care resources for Trans Women of Color to help meet Healthy goals.

This organization is supported through the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, which is housed at Astraea.

Dignity and Power Now

Dignity and Power Now was created to be the principle organization for a multifaceted, trauma informed, healing, motivated movement to end state violence and mass incarceration.

Dignity and Power Now was created to be the principle organization for a multifaceted, trauma informed, healing, motivated movement to end state violence and mass incarceration. Dignity and Power Now is founded and chaired by Black Lives Matter Cofounder Patrisse Khan-Cullors. Dignity and Power Now (DPN) is a Los Angeles based grassroots organization founded in 2012 that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities. Our mission is to build a Black and Brown led abolitionist movement rooted in community power towards the goal of achieving transformative justice and healing justice for all incarcerated people, their families, and communities.

Meet our US Fund grantee partners!

We’re thrilled to announce this year’s U.S. Fund grantee partners. These are some of the fiercest organizations in the country using transformative strategies to combat criminalization, resist state violence and white supremacy, and build collaborative, sustainable LGBTQI movements where gender, reproductive, racial, migrant and economic justice is not an ideal, but a lived truth for us all.

We’re thrilled to announce this year’s U.S. Fund grantee partners.

Astraea awarded $1M in grants, to 32 organizations, in 13 states! These are some of the fiercest organizations in the country using transformative strategies to combat criminalization, resist state violence and white supremacy, and build collaborative, sustainable LGBTQI movements where gender, reproductive, racial, migrant and economic justice is not an ideal, but a lived truth for us all.

Many of our grantee partners are using multiple and diverse strategies to achieve their aims, and are engaging in cross-issue collaborations that build power at the local and national levels. Organizations are:

  • Increasing visibility of healing justice strategies and the de-stigmatization of mental health services, such as National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN)’s unique online directory of queer and trans mental health practitioners of color that assists QTPoC in accessing mental health services. Since their launch in 2016, the network has grown to over 1,500 active members.
  • Expanding the intersections of racial, economic, and migrant justice movements to center Black queer and trans migrants, such as Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project’s regional community gatherings and organizer trainings that create networks of support for Black queer and trans migrant communities and build leadership to defend and protect Black LGBTQIA migrants.
  • Running powerful policy advocacy and organizing campaigns against discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system, such as Young Women United’s fight against SB 78 and Communities United for Police Reform’s campaign for the Right to Know Act.

We are committed not only to resourcing movements via grantmaking, but also to supporting and strengthening cross-collaborations. In January 2018 we hosted a lively and intimate convening with twenty U.S. Fund grantee partners in Washington D.C. Throughout the day, conversations centered around vulnerability, safety, sustainability, and the need for innovative strategies in this intensified moment of white supremacy, racism, and violence; from politicizing direct service provision, engaging in interfaith organizing, to building cross-movement visions and collaborations. Our partnerships with groups like these underscore why we are meeting this political moment with a renewed sense of urgency—and hope. Please join us in celebrating the work of these formidable grantee partners and read more about their work in the links below. Audre Lorde Project // Black Alliance for Just Immigration // Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project // Black Youth Project 100 // Blackbird: Fueling Innovation into Black Organizing // Black and Pink // BreakOUT! // Center for Media Justice // Community United Against Violence, Inc. // Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) // El/La Para Translatinas // Ella Baker Center for Human Rights // Enlace // Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement // FIERCE // Freedom, Inc. // Girls for Gender Equity // Immigrant Youth Coalition // Law for Black Lives (L4BL) // Mariposas Sin Fronteras // Mijente // National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network // New Voices Pittsburgh // Power Inside // Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) // SisterReach // SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective // Survivors Organizing for Liberation (SOL) // SPARK! Reproductive Justice NOW // Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) // Trans Queer Pueblo // Young Women United (YWU) By supporting Astraea you are creating ecosystems of resistance that are smart, effective, and unique. We are answering the call of this moment. We will win. And we will do so because of your support. Join us, donate now and sign up to our emails or social media. 

About the image: Freedom Cities is a movement for safe, healthy and thriving neighborhoods and local communities led by Astraea grantee partners Ella Baker Center, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Enlace. Credit: Ella Baker Center

National Network of Abortion Funds

The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice.

The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice.

MediaJustice (formerly Center for Media Justice)

The Center for Media Justice fights for racial and economic justice in a digital age by advancing communication rights, access, and power for all communities harmed by persistent inequality and oppression.

The MediaJustice (formerly the Center for Media Justice) fights for racial and economic justice in a digital age by advancing communication rights, access, and power for all communities harmed by persistent inequality and oppression. Launched in 2009, MediaJustice envisions a future where under-represented communities have the power to create the media and communications environment they need to win justice in a changing world. The MediaJustice recognizes that inadequate access to communication technologies speeds up and worsens racial discrimination, expands the carceral state and surveillance structures, and further criminalizes Black, migrant, indigenous, LGBTQI, and low-income communities. Centering the power of narrative within movements for racial and economic justice, MediaJustice houses the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net): the largest formation of constituency-based organizations that collaborates for communication rights, access, and power. Since 2008, MAG-Net members have successfully collaborated with partners across movements to win open internet protections, reduce interstate prison phone rates, block destructive corporate media mergers, and modernize low-income Lifeline programs that connect millions of low-income households to faster broadband service.

Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project

Launched in December of 2017, the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project formed in response to the invisibilization of Black LGBTQIA migrants’ experiences of being undocumented, queer, and Black within migrant narratives, immigration justice, and racial justice movements.

Launched in December of 2017, the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project formed in response to the invisibilization of Black LGBTQIA migrants’ experiences of being undocumented, queer, and Black within migrant narratives, immigration justice, and racial justice movements. BLMP recognizes that their community lives in a space where racism, xenophobia, misogyny, trans/homophobia, policing, detention & deportation, and criminalization uniquely targets the daily life, wellness, and safety of queer and trans Black migrants. They envision a world where all Black LGBTQIA migrants and their loved ones have housing, bodily autonomy, health and the ability to travel freely with dignity and safety. Working at the local, regional, and national level to face multifaceted & intensifying attacks on their communities, they organize community and movement building events around the country to reduce isolation, create support systems for trans and queer Black migrants, and build leadership and local power to defend Black LGBTQIA+ communities. Comprised of and led by an intergenerational yet mostly youth steering committee of  13 queer, trans, women, undocumented/under-documented, and 1st generation migrants, and with three network-leads in California, D.C., and Houston, BLMP is leading trainings and community gatherings throughout the US South, West, Midwest and Northeast; in particular, with trainings focused on transformative community organizing, healing practices to address trauma, and know your rights trainings when dealing with police and ICE. View their mini documentary: https://youtu.be/hmyvvc91BCs

SPARK Reproductive Justice Now

SPARK envisions a future where communities in Georgia and the South have resources and power to make sustainable and liberatory decisions about their bodies, gender, sexualities, and lives.

SPARK envisions a future where communities in Georgia and the South have resources and power to make sustainable and liberatory decisions about their bodies, gender, sexualities, and lives. Based in Atlanta, SPARK aims to queer the Reproductive Justice movement and uplift people of color living in the Trans experience. Successfully bringing a racial justice and queer liberation framework to the reproductive justice movement in Georgia and the Southeast, they believe that the Queer and Trans youth of color living in the South have a unique experience of reproductive violence, and body and gender oppression. In particular, this requires them to go beyond the traditional focus of access to abortion and contraception. Working with communities that face daily obstacles of homelessness, displacement, poverty, immigration surveillance and detention, inaccessible health care and inadequate health insurance, and stigma against people living with HIV, SPARK creatively uses collective action, policy advocacy, leadership development to create impact and empower their base.