San Antonio’s LGBTQ+ Nonprofits Lean on Community After Funding Losses

Video editing by Blaine Young

San Antonio - The crusade by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) slashed federal support for nonprofit organizations across the nation, including in San Antonio’s LGBTQ+ community. The Pride Center San Antonio is one of those organizations.

The Center connects community members to free resources that help fulfill their daily needs, including rental assistance and mental and physical health services. It faced over $200,000 dollars in cuts, seeing a reduction in staffing and programs.

Interim Executive Director Lex Loro says this was never about savings tax payers’ dollars; it was about silencing our community.

 “These federal funding challenges are attempting to silence LGBTQ+ people. They’re attempting to stretch us thin. They’re attempting to challenge us. They’re attempting to put us in a space of chaos. When you see these federal funding challenges, everyone is immediately in crisis mode, understandably, because we have to figure out how to keep programs operational. But, that is a tactic they are using to try and derail us,” Loro explains. “But we refuse to be derailed, and we also demand a future where there is equitable funding for minoritized communities to do good work for our communities.”

Lex Loro, Interim Executive Director, Pride Center

“But we refuse to be derailed, and we also demand a future where there is equitable funding for minoritized communities to do good work for our communities.”

Despite national and state pressure, Loro remains committed to serving San Antonio.

“We’ve had programs that have shifted over time, depending on what the grants are. So, in the past you could come to the Pride Center and get an at-home HIV testing kit,” Loro says, “but that funding did not continue; we don’t have that program anymore. That doesn’t mean we won’t refer you to somewhere in town to get tested. So, ultimately you still get tested, you just might not get tested through an at-home testing kit provided by The Center.”

She continues, “So we don’t want people to think that the way they’re going to interact with The Center is going to shift too drastically, because we’re still going to do the standard model of resource referral we’ve always done.”

The speed and scale of these cuts is unprecedented, but this is not the first time San Antonio nonprofit organizations lost federal funding. Thrive Youth Center, which provides housing to LGBTQ+ youth facing homelessness, faced spending cuts when pandemic-era funding ended. Executive Director Justin Holley says that they found a way to prioritize their core services and maximize funding dollars.

“We identified that that was going to be a challenge about two years ago. So, we started to look for other funding programs to sustain the model that we had,” says Holley. “And, we were able to really build a base of settling in on core services; anything a youth might need to get sustainable in a time period, and to find funding sources for those parts.”

Donate to the nonprofit of your choice at TheBigGiveSA.org.

Now they receive most of their funding from private grants, which he says can serve as a road map for organizations during this time. The Pride center says they will pursue such sources. In this time of turbulence, Holey recommends San Antonio organizations lean on each other, and the community they have built here locally.

Holey says, “That’s the beauty of San Antonio. I would say it’s one degree of separation in this city. We all know each other; we all know what we do; we know our expertise, and we help each other. So, our relationships are critical to keep that momentum going. And, in an LGBTQ community, that’s what we do. Somebody falls, we help them get up.”

And there are ways you can help, too.

The Big Give, now in its 12th year, is the “biggest day of online giving” in the San Antonio region, and has raised over $50 million for area nonprofits since it began. This year, it kicks off at 6 pm on Wednesday, September 17 until 6 pm Thursday, September 18th. The early donation period kicked off on September 10 and will continue until the 18th.

Visit the nonprofits’ websites directly to donate to area nonprofits supporting the LGBTQ+ community.