A game-changing charitable bequest
What could Stonewall do with $2 million?
Mark Lane Brandt (1964-2021) — pictured here with his beloved canine companion, Rio — left a bequest of $2 million to Stonewall Community Foundation.
That was the question posed to our team last fall by the estate of Mark Lane Brandt, who passed away in early 2021 and had named Stonewall Community Foundation in his will. Speaking with his executor (and one of his best friends), we learned about his passion for the LGBTQ+ community, including young people alienated from their families and those in unexpected crisis. Our team looked at the transformative opportunity presented by a gift of this size, as well the estate’s interest in spending down the funds for direct and meaningful impact in the near term, rather than endowing them for perpetual but smaller-scale grantmaking.
Stonewall proposed a 10-year plan that had three key objectives:
Anchor a significant and sustained increase in Stonewall’s programmatic output
Shore up Stonewall as a vital resource provider in the LGBTQ nonprofit ecosystem
Grow our movement’s political and economic resilience as we head toward an uncertain 2025
This is a critical moment for LGBTQ+ people as growing attacks on our rights, our bodies, and our families threaten to erase the political and legal gains of the last few decades.
The estate loved our proposal, and we moved forward to create The Mark L. Brandt Legacy Fund, which “honors the life and memory of Mark Lane Brandt by resourcing the needs of the LGBTQ community, expressly centering young people alienated from their families, immigrants and refugees, and populations living in New York City and Florida. Additionally, as a reflection of Mark’s love of animals, the Fund actively supports advocacy and programs for their care and protection, including service and support animals.”
This fund has three primary components:
Macro grantmaking — Funding for large-scale work that stands to benefit broad but discrete populations. Presently, issues like mental health, economic justice, bodily autonomy, protections for trans people, and the impact of climate disasters on vulnerable people and wildlife are particularly pressing. And, as the likelihood of a shifting political reality nears, it is prudent to frontload investments in movements for culture change, with a focus on attitudes toward LGBTQ people, as well as strengthening civic engagement and democracy.
Micro grantmaking — Strategic financial interventions in the form of direct cash assistance to individuals. These microgrants, typically of $500 or less, will support survival, harm reduction, and increased self-sufficiency for LGBTQ+ people in crisis.
Operating and capacity support — Expanding Stonewall’s capacity to efficiently manage growth in our program work, which over the last two years has added two new scholarship programs, a fund to support access to gender-affirming healthcare, and a national initiative to create educational and professional possibilities in STEM for trans youth.
In the summer of 2022, Stonewall began expanding capacity with the creation of two new staff positions: a program assistant, and an operations and executive assistant. As we continue onboarding these new team members, we are seeing our ability to flexibly collaborate with our grantee and donor partners grow.
The Mark L. Brandt Legacy Fund is already making an impact and recently awarded a $6,000 grant to support the critical needs of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. This grant was also used to leverage gifts from Stonewall fund partners, raising an additional $21,500 for this emergency effort. We look forward to announcing the first round of public grant cycles for both macro and micro grant programs over the coming months.
We are deeply grateful to Mark Lane Brandt and to the executors of his estate for their trust in us and their belief in our vision.
We encourage you to reach out to us if you are interested in opening a fund or you want to include Stonewall in your estate plans!