About Us

The Kitchen Table Giving Circle (KTGC), a new funder of community work focusing on lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender women of African descent had its official launch and presented its first grant on Monday, June 27, 2011 in New York City.

Based in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, The Kitchen Table Giving Circle provides philanthropic support to Black/African Descent Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LBTQ) women led projects and organizations that are working to improve the lives of Black/African Descent LBTQ women.

In 2007, Kim Ford, a Black Lesbian living in NYC, approached Karen R. Sebastian, a Black Lesbian living in New Jersey with an idea to start an organization where Black Lesbians pooled their money in order to fund the social justice work of other Black lesbians. Kim and Karen saw how so few Black/African Descent LBTQ projects and organizations received key funding to execute their organizational visions. With this in mind, Kim and Karen created KTGC. Today KTGC is now approaching twenty members of which six are on the steering committee.  This growth demonstrates the importance of Black women’s role in philanthropy as well how impactful pooled resources can be.

Original organizational supporters of Kitchen Table Giving Circle includes The Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice where the Kitchen Table Giving Circle is a Donor Advised Fund and the Gill Foundation, from whom KTGC received an initial grant. Through these and member donations, KTGC will award grants annually by reviewing member-recommended organizations and determining awardees from that group.