The Calamus Foundation
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,For You O Democracy, Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks, By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades.
The Calamus Foundation offers support to qualified charitable organizations working in two areas. First, we support LGBT organizations working to promote the formation, growth, and well-being of their communities, with particular emphasis on social justice and civil rights. Second, we fund non-LGBT organizations that advocate for social, racial and economic justice and that integrate LGBT protections into their work.
As a small grantmaker (the majority of our grants are $10,000 or less), we aspire to reach those groups who, because of the nature of their mission or because they are newly formed,may not have access to traditional funding sources.Grants can be one or multi-year. Organizations we have supported include:
SONG, or Southerners on New Ground, develops skills, leadership and connection among Southern LGBT communities, people of color, rural people, immigrants and working class people, creating alliances in the struggle for dignity and justice. To make the strength of these communities and work visible, SONG amplifies stories of LGBT liberation and resistance.
The LGBT Racial Justice Fund supports groups that see the inextricable link between gender, LGBTQ, and racial justice—connections that are starker than ever in our current political climate. RJF has specifically focused on the innovative organizing occurring in the U.S. Southeast, recognizing the leadership of LGBTQGNC people of color in that under-resourced region. During 2017, RJF provided more than $850,000 to essential LGBTQ racial justice work conducted in the South.
I-MAK serves as a “patent detective,” who fight to remove barriers to treatment for some of the world’s deadliest diseases, such as hepatitis C and HIV, and ensure a competitive healthcare market where the needs of patients and payers come first. In addition to striving for patent reform and filing patent challenges, I-MAK conducts original research and analysis and provides educational programming to communities across the globe.
Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, a leader in prevention activism in Africa whose work has led to the reduction of drug pricing for crucial anti-retroviral medications in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the establishment of mother-to-child prevention campaigns and the provision of ARV therapy for all HIV+ South Africans.
The Peter Cicchino Youth Project of the Urban Justice Center, which provides legal services and education for homeless LGBTQ youth in New York City, including undocumented immigrant young people.
The Correctional Association of New York, whose Juvenile Justice Project pioneered making the fair and equal treatment of LGBT youth in state custody a top priority.
Although the Calamus Foundation is incorporated in Delaware, there is no specific geographic focus to our grantees. Limited staffing does not allow for unsolicited requests for funding.
