Who we fund · 2025 spotlight
Sweet Evening Breeze, Louisville, Kentucky
Glenn Martin, Executive Director, the moment the room found out what it had raised for his youth organization.
$115,000+
100% volunteer since 2016
Queer youth shouldn't have to leave home to find belonging.
Small LGBTQ+ youth organizations are doing the most with the least, in the places where it's hardest to grow up queer. We send them 100% of proceeds.
Youth from OUTMemphis, a wayOUT grantee
LA 2025 · $115,000+ for Sweet Evening Breeze, Louisville
LA 2024 · $199,898 for Outright Vermont
100% to the youth organizations
All volunteer since 2016
LA 2024 · $199,898 for Outright Vermont
100% to the youth organizations
All volunteer since 2016
HERE. QUEER.
Step inside the Gayla.
Once a year, each city throws one big night. The whole room gives to one youth organization.
This is wayOUT in action
100% of proceeds from this room went to queer youth.
The wayOUT Way
We fund the small, local youth organizations with boots on the ground: the ones doing the most with the least, in the places bigger charities don't reach.
1
Identify
We look for local leaders and grassroots organizations already doing the work for LGBTQ+ youth, especially where support is hardest to find.
2
Listen
We ask what they need and what a real investment would let them do, and we take their lead.
3
Fund
We raise the money through our chapters, our partners and our big nights, and we send it to them.
4
Advise
When it’s useful, we share what we’ve learned and open our address book. They decide what to use.
5
Connect
We introduce them to each other and to bigger networks, so no one’s doing this alone.
Who it's for
An affirming space isn't always a building. Sometimes it's one adult who knows how to hold space.
Next up
Get tickets
LA GAYLA
Photos by Kit Karzen
The first ten years
$0+
raised and granted to LGBTQ+ youth organizations, 2016 to 2025. Tap a year.
- Los Angeles
- Seattle
- New York
- Bay Area
- Atlanta
- National