Interview: Katie Carter of Pride Foundation

To celebrate this year’s Pride, Can Can is absolutely honored to be partnering with Pride Foundation, one of the organizations uniting and empowering the Northwest’s LGBTQ+ community.

Founded in the dire need for resilience, Pride Foundation has been serving the five-state region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington since 1985, and their ability to support both individuals and entire communities of folks fighting for inclusivity, safety, and hope has only grown since.

We were able to sit down with Katie Carter, Pride Foundation’s CEO, to learn about the perennial foundation’s beginnings, goals, and how, every day, it embodies the values of courage, integrity, innovation, and hope in everything they do.

Keep reading to join the fight for a world in which every LGBTQ+ individual can live as their full, authentic selves, safely and proudly, no matter where they call home.

THECANCAN.COM: Can you tell us about the Pride Foundation's beginnings?

Katie Carter: We were founded in 1985, and it’s both a hard and hopeful story because we were founded in the midst of the HIV/AIDS crisis. In the mid-eighties, so many people in our community were dying from AIDS-related complications, and our government wasn't protecting us. There weren't any of the support systems that we have today that have come about because of decades and decades of fighting, activism, and effort to build them on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community.

Pride Foundation really began both at that moment, as well as in this moment of burgeoning LGBTQ+ activism in Seattle and beyond. There were groups starting to form and more concerted efforts happening locally and nationally to assert the rights of queer and trans people in our region. We were in the midst of this very real crisis, but there was also this incredible response from our community to build the things that we need.

Katie Carter, CEO of Pride Foundation (2019)

Pride Foundation was born at the intersection of those things and by a community of people, as the mythology goes, around a kitchen table. There was this coming together of leaders and activists and community members who wanted to build a foundation, both literally and figuratively, for the LGBTQ+ movement in the Northwest. We are a public, community foundation. We are a place where LGBTQ+ folks and our allies can invest resources and invest their estates. Many people during the AIDS crisis wanted to make sure that their resources went back to their communities and chosen families who supported them through that. Among many other things, Pride Foundation is a vehicle to make sure that our community's resources go back to our community.

At the same time, we are sadly the only LGBTQ+-focused foundation in the Northwest. Meaning, we are the only foundation in the Northwest that is intentionally and exclusively focusing on the LGBTQ+ community. We are a foundation that invests early in organizations and groups that are r supporting the needs of our community. Through grants, our scholarship program, and through our community advocacy, research, and education work, we have become an entity that supports our community in a myriad of ways.

THECANCAN.COM: How does the Pride Foundation live out its values in ways both big and small?

Katie Carter: We are a values-driven organization, and the values listed on our website–courage, integrity, innovation, and hope–are just some of the values that drive us. We are also an organization that's driven by a deep commitment to intersectional racial justice. We understand and believe that the systems of oppression that exist in our communities are fundamentally interconnected. In our fights for justice, we need to be using an intersectional lens and understand what that means for gender justice, how it’s connected to racial justice, and what it means for LGBTQ+ justice – and many more movements for justice.

Our values come through in who we're funding, how we're funding, and the way that we show up in communities. Being a foundation and being an out and proud LGBTQ+ Foundation in the Northwest, including Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska, is crucial because it is a hard moment right now for our communities. While we don't always feel it living here in Seattle, the everyday lived experience of safety and inclusion for LGBTQ+ people and, especially, trans people right now is being threatened. It is not a safe place for many people in our communities, and, frankly, it hasn't been. It's been escalating to a level that is really quite alarming, especially looking at what's happening in Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Part of the ways in which values like courage, integrity, innovation, and hope show up is that in the face of all of that adversity, Pride Foundation continues to be there and be present in those communities. We continue to fund the groups that are directly confronting the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that is happening in those places, the groups who are continuing burgeoning movements of activism in those places. We provide support through resources like gas cards and meal cards for the activists who are doing the hard work of speaking to the legislatures.

Literally, while we're having this interview, I got a call from one of our partners up in Alaska looking for support to help LGBTQ+ community members get to Juneau to share their stories with the governor, in an attempt to fight back against the anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills that are happening there. For me, that shows the integrity that we have as a foundation; our community trusts us, and they know that we're here and we're going to try to show up in whatever way we can, even when that changes on a pretty regular basis. And, we like to be innovative in how we show up.

Fundamentally, everything about Pride Foundation is grounded in hope, which is hard in moments like this. It's hard to believe that things will and can be different, especially when we've made progress and then feel like we have to take two steps back afterward. It's a belief that this world can be different, that it must be different, and that we have to keep fighting to get there.

That is what drives us every day at Pride Foundation. That is what helps us inspire our community to invest in our work so that we can continue to support the groups, the leaders, and the work that's happening all across the five-state region that we serve.

I also want to shout out the whole Pride Foundation team. I am beyond lucky to get to work with this incredible group of leaders on our staff and board. As an organization, we're values-driven, but as individuals, we're also values-driven. The folks on our team embody our values among many others. Courage, integrity, innovation, and hope are the qualities and values that I see lived out every single day by individual folks who are in Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and other parts of our region. We try to make sure that we're also building an organization that is supporting their leadership, their growth, and their capacity.

Pride Foundation is also grounded in a belief around care. The care for our team members, our staff, and our board is what is going to enable us to care for our communities. It is all grounded in our founding, that we are a foundation that was built to care for our community when and where no one else was. We've known that we have to build what we need for ourselves, and that, sadly and unfortunately, we can't trust other people will do it for us. So, we have to do it for ourselves, and we have to do it for one another.

THECANCAN.COM: Can you speak more about your local efforts in Seattle and why it is so important for LGBTQIA+ advocacy to thrive here despite a seemingly open atmosphere?

Katie Carter: I'm going to take this question in a slightly different direction. Because we were founded in Seattle, our headquarters is here. But, we have staff and board members all across the five-state region that we serve. One of our commitments as an organization is and has been since our founding to focus on the entire region that we work in. Part of that is because, especially back in the early days and even now, so many of our staff and board members are not from Seattle. For example, the co-chair of our board based here in Seattle is originally from Alaska; he moved to Seattle for the community. Our other co-chair is from a small town in eastern Oregon and moved to Portland. I'm from the Midwest originally, and that's part of why I moved out here, to find community, to find resources, and to find safety, frankly. We know that this has been part of our story of who we are as a foundation; people have moved from more rural and conservative communities to places like Seattle or Portland as a way to find community and find one another.

The mission of Pride Foundation is that our entire community should be able to be their full, whole, authentic selves in all of the communities that they call home. We shouldn't have to leave Ontario, Oregon, and we shouldn't have to leave Missoula, Montana. We shouldn’t have to move to a big city in order to feel safe, to feel included, or to feel like we are a part of our community. That is part of why we specifically and intentionally invest in rural communities. We, of course, invest in places both in Seattle and Portland, but we also reach outside of those major urban areas because of that fundamental belief.

I would encourage folks in Seattle to think about community more broadly and not use some of the geographic boundaries of our city to say, “That's not happening in Washington. That's happening in Idaho, so we don't need to worry about it.” Because a lot of our supporters are here in Seattle, we try to offer a connection to and an understanding of what's happening outside of our city. We have a commitment and an obligation to people in places beyond where we're at. We have a commitment, an obligation, to fight for communities in Montana that are being silenced and where really harmful anti-trans legislation is being passed actively. We have a commitment because those folks are our family, too. Those folks are part of our community, and it's not enough to just say, “Well, Seattle is pretty good. We got it good here, so everyone should just move here, and be safe.” That isn’t our goal. Our goal is that everybody should be able to live, thrive, feel safe, be happy, and be included in all of the places that they call home. Even here in Seattle or in Portland and other places that are seemingly more progressive, we have to make sure that our institutions are safe, and that our communities are inclusive. It's happening here and all around us. We exist in this milieu. Even if you know the laws in place in Seattle and feel like they will protect us more, we still know that there's work to do within institutions here to make sure that they are, for example, genuinely supporting trans people within those organizations around things like pay equity and health care, access, and safety.

I also encourage people, especially folks who might have the privilege of being white and in these seemingly safe communities, to understand that sometimes gender identity, expression, and racial identities don't make things the same for everyone in our community. It's easy to say Seattle is inclusive, but I know there are a lot of, for example, lack trans folks who do not feel included as part of the community here in Seattle. We still have work to do here.

Pride Foundation Board (2022)

THECANCAN.COM: What is the Pride Foundation's biggest goal right now, and how can we (Seattleites) do our part to help?

Katie Carter: Our biggest, overall goal as an organization is to build a world in which all LGBTQ+ people can live safely and openly as our whole, beautiful, fabulous, authentic selves in all of the communities that we call home. I just articulated in the last question, all the reasons why I think that's so important. That will always be the North Star that we're heading toward.

But, this year and in the years to come, what we're really trying to do is to make sure that our community has the resources that they need to thrive and build the supportive structures that will get us to that world. We are trying, in all of the ways that we can, to increase our grant-making. Over the course of the pandemic, we were able to triple the number of grants that we're moving out to our communities from about $500,000 a year to more than $1.6 million a year. We are increasing the resources for the LGBTQ+ groups and organizations across the region who are doing the work to make sure that our communities have what we need.

We have a scholarship program that has significantly increased the resources we have to award to LGBTQ+ students across the region. This year, we're awarding more than $750,000, which is more than we've ever awarded. We are focused on making sure that communities who are being attacked legislatively across the region have the resources that they need to fight back against the silencing and harmful legislation that we're seeing. We do that through our community advocacy, research, and education department, which we are currently growing.

Really, our biggest goal right now is growing those resources that we have to be able to move out to our communities. The way that folks can help us do that is by supporting our work.

I know that sometimes people feel like making a donation or offering resources isn't enough. But, those resources stretch, and we move them out where they're needed most. I can guarantee you that for the scholars who receive awards and the groups who receive grants, those resources make a big impact. It also is impactful to know that there is an LGBTQ+ foundation and a community of supporters behind that foundation who believe in the work that they're doing, who are cheering them on in their educational pursuits or in their work, and are telling them explicitly that they believe in this work and that they're in the fight, too. So, it's more than just a donation. It is a vote of confidence in the work that's happening. It is a way of sharing the values that we've been talking about.

We would like to take this opportunity to formally invite everybody who's reading this to attend our Tend event. We call it “Tend” because we really want to make sure that we are tending to our communities. The event is on June 8th. It's at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. There is no ticketed cost. We try to make all of our events accessible to our community. Folks can just RSVP, and join us! We would love to have folks who are new to Pride Foundation or who have been in our community for a long time join us for an evening of celebration, joy, resistance, and resilience. We'll have a drag queen story hour, and it's gonna be a really fun program highlighting groups and scholars and work happening all across the region. It'll be a great opportunity if you are in Seattle and want to know what's happening in Montana–we're going to tell you! We're going to share more details about what's happening there and highlight one of the key groups on the ground who is really fighting the good fight out there. We are committed to this being a fun, enjoyable event because we know that Pride Month is an opportunity for us to remember our roots, remember where we can come from, and remember the trans women of color who started our movement back at Stonewall. It's also an opportunity for us to celebrate all that we've done and everything we've been able to make possible and remember that joy is critical to our movement, too. (Also, we’re hosting events in Bozeman, MT, Boise, ID, Anchorage, AK, and Portland, OR, as well as live-streaming it so you can watch it from home!)

The Pride Foundation family (2022)

THECANCAN.COM: What is your favorite way to celebrate Pride?

Katie Carter: I think that there's truly no wrong way to celebrate Pride. I'm a shy introvert, and sometimes me celebrating Pride is with my partner at home, with our dog, and with us both doing LGBTQ+ movement work every day. And sometimes, you need a break. Sometimes, celebrating pride is taking that time to recharge.

Another one of my favorite ways to celebrate is to celebrate with our community. The events that happen around Seattle Pride and Portland Pride are amazing, but, actually, there are events and Pride festivals that are happening in every small town and community across the five-state region. At Pride Foundation, we try to go as go to as many as we can.

In earlier iterations of my job, when I was a regional organizer in Oregon, I went to every single Pride all across the state of Oregon. There was everything from an amazing, impromptu parade through Ashland, Oregon, to a small group of folks gathering in Pendleton. There is something really beautiful about getting to participate in Pride festivals that are being thrown in different communities across the region. You get to see what an incredible opportunity it is to bring the community together to share resources with one another, celebrate, and have fun.

Above all, though, my favorite way to celebrate Pride is all year long. Pride doesn't just happen in June, and we love having dedicated time to intentionally celebrate it. We like to joke and say, “We're here, we're queer– all year.” So, that's my other personal favorite way to celebrate, to make sure that all year long we're finding ways to celebrate our communities and our authentic identities and all of the beautiful ways that we show up for one another.

Order the Pride Punch at Can Can or the Dressing Room to directly support Pride Foundation and its efforts for a better tomorrow. Visit Pride Foundation’s website to learn more about the resources they offer and what you can do to help.