Breaking Point
The urgent need to invest in global LGBTIQ movements
In January 2025 the United States reversed fifteen years of foreign aid commitments to LGBTIQ communities. A year later, Outright International surveyed 229 LGBTIQ organizations in 94 countries and interviewed 24 of them in depth. 203 had lost funding. This is what that has meant — for shelters, clinics, legal aid, and the people who relied on them.
Published 10 September 2026 • Long read ~45 min • Also available as PDF
organizations surveyed
in 94 countries
reported losing funding
since January 2025
in-depth interviews,
June 2026
languages the survey
was fielded in
The findings in brief
What happened to LGBTIQ organizations after the 2025 funding cuts
Of 229 LGBTIQ organizations surveyed across 94 countries, 203 lost funding after January 2025. Nearly half of those lost more than half their total budget, and more than half traced the loss to a U.S. government source. The cuts fell hardest in countries where courts, police and public services already fail LGBTIQ people — the places where these organizations were the shelter, the lawyer and the emergency number. A year on, only 3% describe themselves as stable, and 36% say they are likely or very likely to be forced to close entirely within twelve months.
This page presents the report's findings in full — what was withdrawn, where it was withdrawn from, and what has happened since, in survey data from 203 affected organizations, in 24 in-depth interviews, and in the words of the people running services that no longer exist. The complete report, with its sources, footnotes and full testimony, is in the PDF.
Key findings
Five findings define the crisis
Most figures below describe the 203 organizations that reported losing funding — not LGBTIQ organizations worldwide. Finding 02 is the exception: it uses countries, not organizations, as its unit. Every number on this page carries its base.
FINDING 01
The funding cuts are deep, and they trace overwhelmingly to one government’s decision.
Among affected organizations, 49% lost more than half of their total budget, and 75% lost more than a quarter. More than half identified U.S. government funding as the source of what they lost. The losses concentrate among small, community-rooted groups: 73% operate on annual budgets under US$250,000, leaving no reserves to absorb a shortfall of this size.
FINDING 02
The cuts landed where the need was greatest.
While almost every country in the world has some form of queer organizing, those movements are funded differently. Where states actively protect the rights of sexual and gender minorities, LGBTIQ organizations can draw on funding from their own national or local governments; where the public broadly supports equality, they can raise money from private donors. Absent both, movements have depended heavily on the international funding that has now retracted, so the hardest-hit organizations are those working where the needs are most urgent. Organizations in countries with the harshest living conditions, the least impartial justice systems, the most widespread discrimination, and the deepest divisions between social groups were roughly two to three times more likely to have been affected by the cuts than those in countries at the other end of each measure. Organizations’ own accounts match that picture: two in five affected organizations operate amid democratic backsliding or authoritarian governance, and 71% report high levels of anti-LGBTIQ violence.
FINDING 03
Lifesaving services are contracting.
Half of the affected organizations have cut health services, including mental healthcare. On HIV specifically, 45% have reduced or discontinued prevention, treatment, or care, and 50% named LGBTIQ people living with HIV among the constituencies most affected by the reductions they made. Sixty-three percent can no longer respond to emergencies involving violence, arrests, displacement, or urgent relocation, a share that rises to 73% in countries experiencing conflict and humanitarian crises.
FINDING 04
The heaviest consequences fall on the most marginalized.
Trans, nonbinary, and genderdiverse people (71%) and lesbian, bisexual, and queer women (61%) were named most frequently among those bearing the deepest impacts. For communities navigating overlapping forms of marginalization, LGBTIQ organizations were often the only system built to serve them at all.
FINDING 05
A substantial share of the movement may not survive the coming year.
Asked to describetheir outlook for the next 12 months, 40% of affected organizations placed themselves atsevere or immediate risk, including 10% facing an immediate risk of closure. Only 3% describedtheir organization as stable. Asked separately how likely they were to be forced to closeentirely within that period, 36% answered likely or very likely. These risks concentrate wherethe cuts were deepest and the financial cushion thinnest.
How we know
The evidence base
Three sources of evidence sit behind every claim in this report.
229
organizations
answered a global survey, fielded late February to late April 2026. In 94 countries. Distributed through Outright's networks and grantees, with outreach to peer organizations across regions. Available in ten languages.
24
in-depth interviews
conducted in June 2026. Drawn only from organizations that indicated through the survey a willingness to be contacted. Selection favored diversity across region, organization type and thematic focus.
120
countries with data
across all four vulnerability measures, in the country-level analysis. A country counts as affected if at least one LGBTIQ organization operating there had funding terminated. This shows where terminations were concentrated, not how many occurred.
Read the denominators carefully
Three different bases appear in this report, and they are not interchangeable. 229 is every survey respondent. 203 is the subset that lost funding — the analytic population for almost every percentage here. Countries, not organizations, are the unit in the country-level analysis. Because participation was voluntary, organizations affected by cuts had a stronger incentive to respond, so 203 of 229 does not mean nine in ten LGBTIQ organizations worldwide lost funding.
Quotations from survey responses are reproduced as submitted, with obvious typographical errors lightly corrected. Organizations are named only where they indicated they could be. In a small number of cases names have been withheld even where consent was given, because the security situation made publication inadvisable.
Chronology
How the funding disappeared
What was announced as a ninety-day pause became a permanent restructuring of who funds LGBTIQ human rights work, and whether anyone does.
20 January 2025
Executive Order 14169 imposes a 90-day freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign assistance. Operationalized as a stop-work order, it forces organizations across every region to halt programs, lay off staff, close shelters and turn away beneficiaries.
28 January 2025
A waiver exempts "life-saving humanitarian assistance" — defined narrowly as core medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence. The same memo excludes diversity, equity and inclusion programs and what it terms "transgender surgeries" from the category of lifesaving work.
February 2025
Termination notices begin arriving. Not pauses — permanent cuts. Outright publishes Defunding Freedom, a rapid assessment covering 125 organizations in 59 UN member states.
By April 2025
The Global Equality Fund is shut down entirely. Launched in 2011 with allied governments, companies and foundations, it had distributed more than US$100 million in its first decade to LGBTIQ organizations and human rights defenders in over 100 countries.
1 July 2025
USAID ceases to exist as an independent agency after 64 years. Surviving programs are absorbed into the State Department.
Through 2025
PEPFAR is narrowed. HIV prevention support is restricted largely to pregnant and breastfeeding women; community-led service delivery for key populations goes unfunded. Corporate, institutional and philanthropic funders pull back in parallel.
2024–2025
More than 30% of global humanitarian funding disappears, driven largely by the collapse of U.S. support, which falls from roughly US$14 billion to US$3.7 billion. UNHCR loses US$1.2 billion in a single year and closes or downsizes 185 field offices.
Feb–Apr 2026
Outright fields the global survey behind this report. 229 organizations in 94 countries respond; 203 report losing funding.
September 2026
This report is published.
The emergency fund for LGBTIQ defenders was itself shut down
Dignity for All: LGBTQI+ Assistance Program · global · closed January 2025
Created in 2012 as the rapid-response arm of the Global Equality Fund, Dignity for All provided small, short-term grants for temporary relocation, legal representation, prison visits, trial monitoring, medical expenses, security measures and equipment replacement. It accepted applications from groups without formal registration, provided they could document at least six months of activism.
It was delivered by a consortium led by Freedom House with ILGA-Europe, Outright International, UHAI EASHRI, Akahatá and Synergia IHR. The stop-work order reached every grant under the Global Equality Fund, and the Fund closed entirely by April 2025. Freedom House's Emergency Assistance Program — which housed Dignity for All alongside the Lifeline fund — halted the same month, after supporting more than 17,000 defenders, organizations and survivors since 2007.
The consequence runs through the rest of this report. When organizations describe threats they could not answer in 2025 and 2026, the principal dedicated emergency mechanism for LGBTIQ defenders was itself suspended.
17,000+
defenders, organizations and survivors supported since 2007
80%+
of Freedom House programs terminated by the executive order
140
countries where those programs operated
Critical Actions
Five critical actions
Resilience cannot substitute forresources, and it is being spent down.
CRITICAL ACTION 01
Act immediately, outside standard grant cycles.
The closure timeline documented here is measured in months, a pace that annual funding cycleswere never built to match. Emergency and bridge funding should move while there are stillorganizations left to fund.
CRITICAL ACTION 02
Provide multi-year, flexible funding.
Support should be usable for staff, operations, and reserves, so organizations can absorb fundingshifts. Funding strategies should not depend on any single government’s continued support, noron assumptions about what other donors will keep covering.
CRITICAL ACTION 03
Restore community-led health services.
The U.S. withdrawal left HIV prevention and treatment for key populations unfunded, andcommunity-led organizations are often the only providers that sexual and gender minorities canaccess safely.
CRITICAL ACTION 04
Fund protection directly.
Emergency response, shelters and safe houses, and relocation capacity requirededicated funding lines, and LGBTIQ organizations should be included in humanitarianresponse mechanisms.
CRITICAL ACTION 05
Direct resources to those bearing the heaviest impacts.
Trans and gender-diverse people and lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) women were namedmost often among the hardest hit. Flexible funding should keep flowing to grassrootsorganizations, including through the intermediary channels many depend on.
Recommendations
Recommendations for key constituents
How we sustain critical organizations
The findings in this report point to an urgent need not only to address the damage caused by recentfunding cuts, but to build a stronger and more resilient funding model for global LGBTIQ movements.That means sustaining critical organizations whose loss would leave major gaps in services,protection, advocacy, or movement capacity, restoring essential health and protection services, andexpanding and diversifying the resources available to movements so they are less vulnerable topolitical shifts, donor concentration, and chronic underinvestment.
The goal should not be to recreate the funding landscape that existed before January2025. It should be to build one that is larger, more diverse, more flexible, and able toreach organizations operating where LGBTIQ people face the greatest barriers.
To donor governments:
- Sustain community-led health services, including HIV prevention and treatment for key populations. Half of the affected organizations in this survey reduced or discontinued health services, including mental health and sexual and reproductive healthcare, and 45% have reduced or stoppedHIV prevention, treatment, or care. Community-led organizations are often the most effective an sometimes the only way to reach people who avoid mainstream health systems because of stigma, discrimination, criminalization, or fear of exposure. Funding national health systems alone will not close these gaps.
- Fund emergency response and protection as a dedicated priority. Nearly two-thirds of affected organizations report being unable to respond to emergencies involving violence, arrests, displacement, or urgent relocation. Governments should provide dedicated funding for emergency grants, shelters and safe houses, relocation, legal assistance, psychosocial support, and other immediate protection needs.
- Include LGBTIQ organizations in humanitarian funding and response. In crisis and conflict settings, these organizations often serve as first responders, reaching people whom mainstream humanitarian systems miss or exclude. They should be eligible for direct humanitarian funding and meaningfully included in coordination and response mechanisms.
- Protect advocacy and documentation. Maintain funding for legal reform, monitoring of violations, strategic litigation, and participation in national and international policy processes. This is the work that addresses the root causes of the needs described above, and it is shrinking: 55% of affected organizations reported reduced legal and policy advocacy, and 38% reduced human rights documentation. Without this work, organizations lose the ability to address the laws, policies, and institutional practices that contribute to the harms documented in this report.
- Base funding decisions on the conditions LGBTIQ people face, not national income level alone. Gross domestic product (GDP) is one important indicator of need, but this report shows that violence, discrimination, weak access to justice, criminalization, restrictions on civil society, and the availability of domestic funding alternatives also determine where international support is most needed. Funding strategies should therefore include countries across income levels where LGBTIQ people face serious barriers or where opportunities for progress could be lost without sustained support.
To institutional donors and philanthropic actors:
- Act quickly when organizations face immediate risk. Thirty-six percent of affected organizations saythey are likely or very likely to close within the next 12 months, and only 3% described themselves asstable. Donors with the ability to provide emergency or bridge funding should not requireorganizations facing imminent closure to wait for the next annual grant cycle.
- Provide funding that can keep organizations functioning, not only projects running. Among surveyrespondents, 71% of affected organizations have laid off staff or cut pay, and 49% lost more thanhalf their budgets. Grants should allow organizations to pay staff, rent, finance and compliancecosts, technology, security, and other essential operating expenses, and build reasonable reserveswhere possible.
- Give organizations enough flexibility to respond when circumstances change. Funders shouldpermit reasonable reallocation of funds when emergencies, political changes, or sudden fundinglosses alter what organizations need. Restrictive project budgets can leave organizations with fundingon paper while preventing them from using it for urgent staff, protection, or operational needs.
- Fund cross-movement work alongside LGBTIQ-specific organizations, and make inclusion a condition of that funding. Many of the people most affected by the cuts—refugees and displacedpeople, sex workers, people living with HIV, people with disabilities—depend on services provided byallied organizations working on migration, humanitarian response, and health. As those servicescollapse, their caseloads are shifting onto LGBTIQ groups that are themselves losing capacity. Butfunding the broader ecosystem is not enough on its own: this report documents shelters turning awaysexual and gender minorities under political pressure, humanitarian response plans that excludethem, and mainstream health facilities they cannot safely use. Donors should require explicit inclusionof LGBTIQ people in the ecosystem work they fund, follow up on whether it is delivered, and treatexclusion as a compliance failure rather than a local inevitability.
- Build funding strategies that do not rest on any single government’s continued support. Thedependence many organizations had on one government’s funding is what made a single policydecision capable of dismantling years of accumulated support in a matter of days. Donors shouldassess concentration risk across their portfolios and help organizations diversify their funding ratherthan assuming another donor will continue covering essential costs. This also applies to donorassumptions about what other donors will keep covering.
- Sustain the intermediary infrastructure that moves resources to local organizations. More than halfof all grants to LGBTIQ movements in the Global South and East travel through intermediary funders,and this report documents what happens downstream when those channels are destabilized. Whenthose mechanisms disappear, small, grassroots, and unregistered organizations may lose the onlyfunding channels available to them.
To intermediary funders:
- Pass as much flexibility as possible to grantees, and negotiate upstream for more. Intermediariesshould avoid adding restrictions that make already-limited funding harder to use and shouldadvocate with their own donors for terms that allow local organizations to respond to changingcircumstances. Organizations in this report described holding funds they could not use for the personin front of them.
- Make emergency reallocation and bridge support easier. Where possible, intermediaries shouldallow existing grantees to redirect funds toward urgent operating, staffing, health, or protection needsrather than requiring them to continue activities that are no longer the highest priority.
- Protect grantee data. Personal information collected through a grant can put staff and activistsat risk if exposed. Funders and intermediaries must continue protecting that data even after thegrant ends.
- Preserve small and flexible grants to grassroots groups. These groups do work that no other actorcan replicate. They serve people invisible to formal systems—communities in hidden or remotelocations, young LBQ mothers, sex workers, people afraid to enter a clinic or a police station—becausethey hold trust those systems lack. Many are unregistered or cannot meet the administrativerequirements attached to larger grants. Intermediaries should preserve funding mechanismsdesigned for these organizations rather than shifting resources exclusively toward larger grants andorganizations. When this channel closes, no other replaces it.
To the corporate sector:
- Reconsider funding decisions made under political pressure. Corporate giving to LGBTIQorganizations has retrenched alongside government and philanthropic funding, often quietly andwithout the scrutiny that government cuts received. Waiting for the political climate to shift before re-engaging prolongs damage that is already measurable. Visibility and funding are separate decisions:companies that judge public association too risky right now can still provide consistent funding,match employee donations, support trusted intermediary funds, and continue partnerships quietlyrather than withdrawing altogether, and re-engage publicly as soon as they are able.
- Fund without requiring public visibility or branding. Companies should offer grants that do notdepend on logos, public campaigns, events, or promotional recognition. In hostile environments, low-profile support may be safer, more useful, and more responsive to what organizations actually need.
- Use corporate funding for needs that other donors may struggle to cover. Flexible corporate fundingcan be particularly useful for staff, organizational operations, emergency response, small grants, andother needs that more restricted government funding may not support.
Quote from Rodolfo Vargas
“The message I would give to donors is not to thinkonly in administrative terms, but to think about theprotection they provide, the participation they support,and the lives they are helping to defend and to dignify.”“The message I would give to donors is not to thinkonly in administrative terms, but to think about theprotection they provide, the participation they support,and the lives they are helping to defend and to dignify.”