Date: Mon, 20 Sep 99 13:16:47 -0400 From: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Subject: [NGLTF PRESS] Ford Foundation Awards Grant to Policy Institute of NGLTF ********************************************* NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE PRESS RELEASE Contact: David Elliot, Communications Director 202-332-6483 ext. 3303 800-757-6476 pager delliot@ngltf.org http://www.ngltf.org 1700 Kalorama Road NW, Washington, DC ********************************************* FORD FOUNDATION AWARDS $200,000 TO NGLTF POLICY INSTITUTE TO STUDY UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES September 20, 1999--The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) announced today it has received a $200,000 research grant from the Ford Foundation. The funding will support research on the policy needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender elderly, people of color and those who are poor or on limited incomes. The NGLTF Policy Institute is a think-tank based in New York dedicated to research, policy analysis, strategy development and coalition building to advance the equality and understanding of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. The grant by the Ford Foundation is among the largest that the Foundation has ever made to a GLBT group and is the largest foundation grant ever received by the NGLTF Policy Institute. "This grant signals that the philanthropic mainstream recognizes that the challenges faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are indeed human rights issues as well," said NGLTF Executive Director Kerry Lobel. "It is significant both because of its historic nature and because of the research and analysis it will fund - research and analysis that do not currently exist." The Ford grant will fund Phase One of the NGLTF Policy Institute's Racial and Economic Justice Initiative, a five-year, three-phase strategic project that will address the invisibility of, and ignorance about, the three target populations in the mainstream GLBT movement and in the broader civil rights community. The Initiative will provide empirically-based, policy analysis on how ageism, economic and racial justice priorities can be added to the dockets of GLBT organizations at the national, state and local levels. In addition, the Initiative seeks to educate non-gay national civil rights and research organizations working on race, poverty and age about the realities of their GLBT constituents. "Our most ambitious and challenging goal is to inform, and hopefully influence, the advocacy and policy work of major national, state and local GLBT organizations," said Urvashi Vaid, director of the NGLTF Policy Institute. "We aim to deploy research and consultation with the constituencies involved to identify and develop policy priorities, and to propose concrete action that can benefit GLBT seniors, people of color and low income folks." Vaid added, "It is also imperative that we move mainstream heterosexual organizations and policy makers working on aging policy, racial justice and poverty to take into account the particular concerns of GLBT people directly affected by these policy debates, and to integrate those concerns into their work on a regular basis."_________________________________________ This message was issued by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Communications Department. If you have a question regarding this post, please direct it to the contact at the top of this message. To reach the NGLTF Communications Department at NGLTF, please call David Elliot, Communications Director, at 202-332-6483 x3303 or pager 800-757-6476. If you wish to UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, please send an email with "UNSUBSCRIBE PRESSLIST" in the subject and body of your email message to . You may also unsubscribe by visiting http://www.ngltf.org.