Publication
LGBTQ+ Voices in RI
The Rhode Island Foundation has been a proud ally and supporter of LGBTQ+ communities for more than 20 years, offering uninterrupted grant support to organizations on the front lines of advocacy, youth services, health and more.
As Rhode Island's only community foundation, and one of the oldest in the country, we are dedicated to mobilizing generosity, convening people to tackle community challenges, and funding the work of nonprofit organizations that seek to ensure Rhode Island - and Rhode Islanders - are thriving. We have both the responsibility and privilege of raising up the voices of marginalized people, as we do in this report.
LGBTQ+ Voices in RI represents an update and a re-examining of the Rhode Island Foundation's groundbreaking 2004 report Meet the Neighbors that gave us a broad demographic picture of Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ community and its importance to the state. Meet the Neighbors provided important background information for our grantmaking and policy work. In recent years, with input from valued community partners, we recognized the need to revisit the report with an eye toward assessing progress and identifying new challenges and opportunities to address needs voiced by Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ community - from the most urgent to the aspirational.
This publication provides an opportunity to hear from some of the many voices of the incredibly diverse LBGTQ+ community in Rhode Island. Their passion and resilience are evident in the themes and insights that are highlighted in its pages. The qualitative nature of this report is complemented by policy research conducted by GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), and a set of potential action items informed by a community convening hosted at the Foundation in late 2023.
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