The Paul Rapoport Foundation

220 East 60th Street, Suite 3H
New York, NY 10022
Tel: (212) 888-6578
Fax: (212) 980-0867

View 2012-2013 grants.

Foundation Receives AVP 2010 Courage Award

To learn more about the 2010 Courage Awards click here.

Important Message

The Paul Rapoport Foundation has announced the
creation of a public interest law fellowship at
Equal Just Works as its final grant.

Read the press release.
The foundation is no longer accepting applications.

Paul Rapoport Foundation to Close its Doors in 2015:
Five year spend-out seeks to maximize support of LGTB communities during fiscal crisis and will focus on building racial and economic equity within the LGTB community. Learn More

Paul Rapoport, an attorney, was a founder of both the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center and the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York. He was deeply committed to supporting the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGTB) communities, with a particular focus on efforts to eliminate homophobia and discrimination against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons.

Paul Rapoport made significant charitable contributions during his lifetime and provided for the establishment of the Foundation after his death in 1987. The Foundation tries to support his concerns and further his dreams.

Paul's Panel of the
AIDS Memorial Quilt

In commemoration of Paul Rapoport's life and work the Foundation has, on the 20th anniversary of his passing, produced Remembering Paul Rapoport, a reminiscence in words and photos celebrating his life and legacy.

View Remembering Paul Rapoport

Did You Know?

Did you know that the first grant awarded in the United States targeted specifically for Transgender Issues was made by the Paul Rapoport Foundation to St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center in 1996?

Read about the place of the Foundation in the history LGTB philanthropy in Funders for LGBTQ Issues' study, Forty Years of LGBTQ Philanthropy.

Strategic Transformation

Read about the Foundation's successful focus on racial and economic equity at the new LGBT Racial Equity website: www.lgbtracialequity.org

Report by Funders for LGBTQ Issues

For the past five years The Paul Rapoport Foundation has been in the vanguard of funders who target their grantmaking to lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGTB) communities of color.

In its 2010 report, Funders for LGBTQ Issues continues to rank the Foundation as the one funder providing the highest percentage of annual grantmaking dollars for communities of color (100%) out of all LGTB funders nationwide. According to the Report's figures, the Foundation provides nearly 17% of all the dollars directed to LGTB communities of color nationally.

View our current grants. Read the full report.

"After We Say Goodbye"
Smart Assets,
Philanthropy New York Blog

In 2009, Anita Nager, the former Executive Director of the Beldon Fund, began a discussion on Philanthropy New York's blog regarding "spend out" versus "in perpetuity." At that time the Paul Rapoport Foundation had already made the decision to follow Beldon down the spend-out path and disburse our assets in five years...

Read Jane Schwartz's blog post.

New York Times Features PRF in Spend-Down Article, "As Foundations Close, Anxiety for Charities"

The Paul Rapoport Foundation acknowledges the problem. "There are not too many people to pick up the slack in giving to LGBTQ communities of color..."

Read the article in the New York Times.

Who We Are | Remembering Paul Rapoport | Current Grants | Form 990-PF
Staff Discretionary Funds | Characteristics and Practices of an Effective Organization

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