Five Years After Pulse, Orlando’s Leading LGBTQ+ Justice Fund Is Growing Its Impact and Setting Up New Structure for Long-Term Movement & Power Building in Central Florida
Contigo Fund is a place-based, intersectional social justice funder, supporting hyper-local grassroots organizing and resource distribution across Central Florida. Founded in the wake of the 2016 Pulse tragedy in Orlando, Contigo Fund is rooted in queer Latinx history, community leadership, and the belief that those closest to the challenges are also closest to the solutions.
“Contigo” means “with you” in Spanish. For communities impacted by violence, discrimination, political attacks, and systemic injustice, our message remains clear: Estamos Contigo. We are with you.
As a participatory grantmaker, Contigo uses community-powered decision-making models rooted in self-determination, shared leadership, and traditions of resource and power sharing. Over the past decade, Contigo has mobilized and moved resources to grassroots organizations, emerging leaders, and historically under-resourced communities across Central Florida.
From 2016 to 2025, Contigo Fund granted $6.1 million directly back into the Central Florida queer community and supported more than 60 grantee partners. Through direct grantmaking, aligned investments, funder education, and ecosystem coordination, we have helped distribute and mobilize more than $12 million toward community-led infrastructure since our founding.
Today, Contigo Fund stands as the largest participatory LGBTQ+ grantmaking intermediary in Central Florida, the first Queer Latinx foundation in the United States, and the largest place-based funder of queer communities of color in the U.S. South. Contigo’s work spans nine Central Florida counties and five interconnected metro areas, a region of more than 5.5 million residents across Brevard, Flagler, Indian River, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole, and Volusia counties.
