Member Spotlight: Kataly Foundation

Member Spotlight: Kataly Foundation

By: Funders for LGBTQ Issues Staff on January 22, 2025

Our Member Spotlight series continues, where we’ll regularly showcase the vital work being done within our network.

We are excited to feature Kataly Foundation.

If you’d like to be considered for a feature, please contact our Membership Engagement Officer, Amara Reese-Hansell at [email protected].


What is Kataly’s vision for the next 3-5 years?

The Kataly Foundation was created as a spend-out in 2018 with the aim to redistribute our resources within 10-15 years. We are now in the second half of our spend out, and our grantmaking and investments will conclude by 2028. 

For these final years of our spend-out, our mission and vision remain unchanged: moving resources to support the economic, political, and cultural power of Black and Indigenous communities, and all communities of color. Our focus in the final years of our lifespan as a foundation is on making sure that we do what we can to support the sustainability of our grantee partners after Kataly is gone. 

Part of our model of wealth redistribution is to invest in such a way that social movement groups can continue to regenerate wealth within their communities. While we know that many of our grantee partners will continue to need philanthropic support, our long-term vision is a future where social movements aren’t dependent on foundations to exist. There is a future after philanthropy where communities have greater agency and decision-making power over resources, and we want to play our part in making that a reality. 

Why does Kataly believe increasing resources for LGBTQ+ communities is crucial in this moment?

Resourcing LGBTQ+ communities is not just crucial in this moment—it is an enduring need. One of the challenges within the funder community is that certain causes, issues, and movements fall in and out of favor depending on the political moment. For example, many funders made proclamations and commitments to racial justice after the murder of George Floyd. While it was heartening to see these statements, it’s unclear how much funders followed through with actions, and how sustained those actions were.

It is certainly true that LGBTQ+ communities are facing grave threats right now, from state-sanctioned violence, hate groups, and other forces. But rather than prioritizing communities based on any given threat they are facing, we want to proactively resource communities leading visionary, power-building work. LGBTQ+ groups have been doing that kind of work for a long time, winning victories for their communities to lead lives with dignity, agency, and self-determination.

One of our core beliefs is that people affected by injustice should be leading on the solutions. We are deeply inspired by the bold organizing led by LGBTQ+ organizations across the country who are fighting for their communities; who know the needs of their people and how to meet them.

If Kataly had a theme song, what would it be & why?

For this question, we took nominations amongst our team members for the Kataly theme song. The winning suggestion came from Iris Garcia, Program Officer for the Mindfulness and Healing Justice Program: opendoors by Jitwam. The refrain of this song is: “I will open doors ‘cause I believe in ya.” 

The lyrics embody the ethos, values, and culture of Kataly. One of our values at the Foundation is transparency. We believe there is far too much secrecy within philanthropy, as well as too much gate-keeping. Our goal is to have somewhat of an “open door” policy when it comes to our work. We want to share as much as we can about how and why we make decisions, and also be open about our failures and lessons learned. 

Part of what speaks to us about the idea of opening doors is also related to why we refer to ourselves as a “spend out” rather than a “spend down.” Our focus is on redistributing resources out into communities in such a way that those resources continue to grow. One of the ways we do that is by making connections between our grantee partners and people, institutions, and networks that can contribute more resources to support their work. 

Ultimately, Kataly is guided by our relationships—with social movements, with philanthropic partners, and with each other as a team. We do our best to open as many doors as we can because of our deep, enduring belief in the work of our grantee partners. 

When you think about Kataly’s journey towards grantmaking and resourcing LGBTQ+ communities, is there anything you could use support or thought partnership on from your peers in the Funders network? Or are there any recent learnings you’re excited to share with the network?

Kataly recently launched a bi-monthly newsletter called After Philanthropy. The idea behind the newsletter is to demystify the practices of philanthropy. We have created a form where people can submit questions to us about our work, and we are committed to answering those questions as transparently as possible. We hope folks will submit questions to us, and subscribe to the newsletter by signing up on our email list. We always welcome feedback on how we can show up as a partner in the work, in true solidarity. 

Photo credit: Bethanie Hines

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