Hartford Foundation Awards $200,000 in Grants to Support the Wellbeing of Greater Hartford’s LGBTQIA+ Community
Eight Grants are the first provided through the Foundation’s Equality Fund
Anchor Health is a leading health center for the LGBTQIA+ community in Connecticut. With offices in Hamden and Stamford, the organization provides groundbreaking, racially inclusive, gender-affirming, and sex-positive medical, mental health, and pharmacy care as well as supportive services to thousands of patients across Connecticut and beyond. Anchor Health continuously works to advance health equity for LGBTQ people through advocacy, community-building, education, and research.
In an effort to expand its services, Anchor Health received a $43,000 grant from the Equality Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, to support the launch of a nine-month LGBTQIA+ pop-up clinic at The Health Collective East in Manchester, providing primary care, gender-affirming medicine, HIV prevention/treatment, and mental health services to 300 patients from Manchester, East Hartford, Vernon, Tolland, and surrounding towns. Manchester was chosen as the site for the pop-up clinic as Greater Hartford residents east of the Connecticut River lack convenient access to these services. The clinic plans to begin offering services in September 2025, with weekly in-person clinics and ongoing telehealth follow-up.
“We are honored and grateful to receive support from the Hartford Foundation’s new Equality Fund,” said Bethany Cinque, Director of Donor Engagement at Anchor Health. “At a time when LGBTQ+ communities face growing barriers to healthcare and rising threats to their safety and well-being, this funding is a powerful commitment to health equity. With this support, Anchor Health will expand into the Greater Hartford area. Anchor Health treats patients regardless of their ability to pay and focuses on the communities who need us most. Our partnership with The Health Collective and the generous support of the Equality Fund will help us ensure all people can access the high-quality, inclusive healthcare they deserve.”
Anchor Health is one of the first eight organizations receiving $200,000 in grants from the Foundation’s Equality Fund. Separately in 2018, donor Joel Roskin established a donor-advised fund, which supports organizations serving Greater Hartford that empower people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions to thrive. Combined, the two funds made the 2025 Equality Fund grantmaking possible.
With a grant from The Equality Fund, the Foundation commissioned a LGBTQIA+ Resident Wellbeing study in partnership with DataHaven in late 2023 to illustrate the current state of the LGBTQIA+ community’s quality of life in Greater Hartford. Findings provided in this report were designed to assist organizations and funders in understanding conditions that affect LGBTQIA+ residents’ health and wellbeing to better direct resources and meet the needs and opportunities of this growing community. The study provided disaggregated data to explore LGBTQIA+ residents’ lives at the intersection of other identities including age, disability, race, and ethnicity in relation to their experiences with housing stability, financial security, health outcomes, health access, and a sense of belonging and social connectedness.
While the study identified Connecticut as a national leader in LGBTQIA+ protections and resources, the report also highlighted some recurring themes and recommendations about ways to further strengthen the LGBTQIA+ community and promote better quality of life: through increased support for queer youth, increased access to quality and affirming healthcare, and continued advocacy for LGBTQIA+ needs around disparate health and wellbeing outcomes.
Grants awarded through the Equality Fund were considered for Greater Hartford organizations that have missions that explicitly support the LGBTQIA+ community or have programs designed specifically to address the unique needs of the LGBTQIA+ community.