Grants
Active Grants & Funded Projects
List of selected active grant projects currently undertaken by the GLBT Historical Society.
Lavender Godzilla: Processing and Digitizing LGBTQ Asian American and Pacific Islander Collections
National Archives’ National Historical Publications and Records Commission
2024-2025
This $122,725 grant from the National Archives' National Historical Publications and Records Commission supports the processing of seven archival collections related to LGBTQ AAPI people. It also supports the digitization of material from these seven collections and three additional, previously processed collections. In total, we will digitize 1,000 items from these ten collections and make material freely and publicly available online.
Closet Ball Beta Tape Collection Digitization Project
Al Larvick Conservation Fund
2023
This grant funds the digitization of several betamax videotapes from the Closet Ball Beta Tape Collection. The Closet Ball was a long-running drag event hosted in San Francisco, California. These tapes include rare scenes of 1980s Closet Ball events and they help document queer life and the drag scene in San Francisco. More information is available at www.allarvickfund.org/closet-ball-beta-tape-collection.
Processing and Digitizing At-Risk LGBTQ Historical Material
California State Library’s California Revealed Project
2024
This project digitizes a variety of material in partnership with California Revealed, including 1970s Sissy Poetry readings that document the cultural world of gay liberation activists in California; videotapes from the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA); recordings of Golden Gate Gay Liberation House board meetings from the late 1970s; audiotapes from the 1983 Jewish Feminist Conference, held at Berkeley High School; video recordings of one of the first public access television series made by and for transgender people, and a scrapbook documenting the career and relationships of Walter Hart, a headlining "female impersonator" at Finocchio's in San Francisco in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. California Revealed has also funded the processing of the Susan Laird papers, that include the records of TransGender San Francisco (TGSF).
Preservation and Accessibility of California’s LGBTQ Heritage
California State Library
2022–2024
This second grant from the California State Library continues important digitization efforts begun under the 2019–2021 California State Library grant. The grant funds the second phase of implementing a Digital Asset Management System (DAMS); the building of 10 new digital collections; the processing and digitization of selections from the society’s LGBTQ Film and Video Collection; and the hosting of two public events focused on how to access and use digitized archival resources.
Castro District Historic Institution Visitor Attraction
San Francisco Office of Economic & Workforce Development
2023–2024
Funds from the Office of Economic & Workforce Development will be used to ensure the accessibility of the GLBT Historical Society Museum by maintaining regular open hours, engaging in outreach to various communities, and creating new exhibitions that explore underrepresented segments of LGBTQ communities.
Past Grants
Preserving and Sharing Jewish LGBTQ History of the Bay Area
Jewish Pride Fund / Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund
2022–2023
Preserving LGBTQ Voices: Digitizing Interviews Conducted by Mary Richards, Bay Area Reporter Journalist
Council on Library and Information Resources
2022–2023
Digitizing Audiotapes From the Linda Garber Oral History Collection
California State Library’s California Revealed Project
2023
Larry Buttwinick Film Collection Digitization Project
Al Larvick Conservation Fund
2022
Sing Out: Processing and Digitizing LGBTQ Music and Theater Collections
National Archives’ National Historical Publications and Records Commission
2021–2022
Rescuing Our American History
National Endowment for the Humanities
2021–2022
California Humanities COVID-19 Relief Grant
California Humanities
2021–2022
Digitizing Materials From the José Sarria Papers
California State Library’s California Revealed Project
2020
Preserving California’s LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Archives Preservation and Digitization
California State Library
2019–2021
Dirk Alphin Collection of Valencia Rose Videotapes Digitization
Bay Area Video Coalition
2019–2020
Illuminating San Francisco’s Rainbow: Preserving, Protecting, and Publicizing the GLBT Historical Society’s Art & Artifacts Collection
San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development
2018–2020
The San Francisco Bay Area’s Response to the AIDS Epidemic: Digitizing, Reuniting, and Providing Universal Access to Historical AIDS Records
National Endowment for the Humanities
2017–2020
San Francisco ACT UP Oral History Project
California Humanities
2017–2020
Bay Area Reporter Digitization Project
Bob Ross Foundation
2016–2018