Out's sister publication, The Advocate, has launched an important new initiative to support the future of LGBTQ+ journalism. Learn more about the project and how you can help below.
The nation’s leading LGBTQ+ magazine launched a nonprofit fundraising campaign to sustain and expand its fearless, original, award-winning reporting at a critical moment for LGBTQ+ rights and independent journalism.
Since 1967, The Advocate has reported on LGBTQ+ lives, documented the queer civil rights movement, and told stories that have helped readers feel seen and less alone. Now, as the publication approaches its 60th anniversary, it has launched The Advocate Journalism Project (AJP), a nonprofit fund that directly amplifies that work.
The AJP’s mission is to expand The Advocate’s independent journalism through donations from individuals, foundations, companies, and other supporters. That funding will help with storytelling, investigative reporting, training future journalists, and preserving the print publication and its archive.
The Advocate is the nation’s oldest queer magazine and, in addition to publishing daily news online at advocate.com, continues to publish in print, preserving a vital way for readers, including the 81 million people in the U.S. without home broadband internet subscriptions, to connect with LGBTQ+ news, history, and culture.
Donations to the AJP will help journalists document LGBTQ+ experiences, investigate threats to the community, and hold those in power accountable. The project joins a growing movement of newsrooms turning to nonprofit fundraising to expand their reporting.
“Queer-focused print and digital journalism serves as a vital tool for community safety,” says Mark Berryhill, CEO of equalpride, the magazine and website’s publisher. “It connects marginalized voices and acts as a watchdog against harmful narratives. Our journalists tell stories that no one else can or will, and that reporting leads to real change. We hold the powerful accountable.”
A history worth protecting
The Advocate’s roots reach back to a police raid that galvanized LGBTQ+ organizing in Los Angeles.
As patrons of the Black Cat Tavern celebrated the arrival of 1967 with New Year’s kisses, undercover police officers arrested and beat customers and employees. At the time, laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy and police raids on gay establishments put LGBTQ+ people at risk of arrest and violence.
The raid helped spur protests and organizing against police brutality.
ONE Archives/USC Libraries
That September, the gay rights organization Personal Rights in Defense and Education, known as PRIDE, published a newsletter called The Advocate, which grew into the current magazine.
The publication is now the only surviving national print and digital magazine of its kind founded before the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York. From its earliest years, The Advocate chronicled LGBTQ+ lives and the struggle for civil rights long before mainstream newsrooms gave it consistent attention.
Learn about The Advocate’s history
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Across the decades, The Advocate has covered the AIDS crisis, suicide in the queer community, violence and discrimination, coming out stories, the fight for marriage equality, and the election of transgender lawmakers. Its print archive preserves a record of those struggles and milestones alongside decades of LGBTQ+ culture and creativity.
For readers who once sought out the magazine secretly in bookstores, and those discovering its digital reporting on their phones today, that coverage offers an enduring connection to a community and a record of its experiences.
The AJP seeks to preserve that legacy while enabling the journalists on the ground to write its next chapter.
That work continues in a political climate marked by anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, misinformation, and attacks on the press. Readers need reporting that examines how those developments affect their lives and gives them crucial information.
Supporting the future
As LGBTQ+ people navigate changing policies, laws, and questions about their rights and safety, access to clear, thoroughly reported information matters.
Funding this work means helping journalists ask powerful leaders tough questions, request public records, follow developing stories, and produce original reporting that explains what their findings mean for readers. It also means making room for feature stories about progress, resilience, and queer joy.
Readers can support the AJP through a one-time gift or by becoming a monthly donor. Donations can also honor someone or commemorate their life. The project accepts contributions through donor-advised funds and welcomes inquiries about legacy giving, grants, partnerships, and corporate sponsorships.
To learn more or make a donation, visit advocate.com/donate.
Your donation helps generate the reporting readers depend on and bring these stories to future generations.
MAKE A ONE-TIME OR MONTHLY DONATION
Thank you for reading, for sharing our stories, and for being part of The Advocate’s history. Please help us spread the word about the AJP. You can also help the AJP by forwarding this message and sharing it on social media. Your generosity will help shape the future of this work.
With gratitude,
The Advocate team
For legacy giving, grants, partnership, and corporate sponsorship inquiries, please visit advocate.com/donate. We accept donor-advised fund (DAF) donations.
The AJP is a fiscally sponsored project of Independent Arts & Media (EIN: 94-3355076), a 501(c)(3) organization, and a top-rated, four-star nonprofit on Charity Navigator. Donations to Independent Arts & Media are tax-deductible as allowed by law and will be granted to the AJP.
