San Diego Pride is giving up to $100,000 in proceeds from last year’s festival to local non-profits serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. The money – to be granted through a fund managed by the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation – will be presented during the foundation’s annual boat cruise on Sunday, Oct. 9. The boat cruise honors individuals and organizations that have established donor advised funds with the foundation.

The Human Dignity Foundation is a non-profit charitable endowment established by local community members and businesses to improve the quality of life within the GLBT community. Pride established the fund in 2003 to benefit local GLBT non-profits that promote awareness, education and civil rights; benefit youth and seniors; provide physical or mental health services; promote the arts; and foster leadership abilities. The San Diego Human Dignity Foundation established the Pride fund guidelines with input from Pride.

David Pierce, executive director of the Human Dignity Foundation, said a grants committee considered 30 applications and requests for a combined total of more than $350,000. From those, the committee selected 16 organizations for further consideration and site reviews.

“All of the applications were really good,” Pierce said. “It was difficult to narrow it down.”

Members of the grants committee who will make final recommendations to the foundation’s board of directors are: Linda Barufaldi, Meghan Duffy, William Kelly, Julia Legaspi, Stan Lewis, Mel Merrill and Peggy Walkush.

Pierce said the committee would make its decision based on the organization’s recent accomplishments; how well the organization works with the LGBT communities; its collaborative experience; and how inclusive the organization is of the community it serves.

The committee will meet on Sept. 7 to discuss the site visits and make a decision on the grants to the Human Dignity Foundation’s board of directors. The board will then vote on the recommendations.

“We are still in the process of notifying organizations of whether or not they have been selected for a site visit and setting up the site visits,” Pierce said.

The request for proposals was issued in early June with a deadline of July 1. A workshop was held at the Shelter Pointe Resort and Marina to assist applicants with the process and grant guidelines.

In the absence of enough qualified candidates, Pierce said the grants committee could potentially retain some of the $100,000 for the next funding cycle, though he expects nearly all the money will be allocated.

“Since we had so many requests, I’m sure it will be close,” he said.

Pride has granted money through the fund only once previously. In 2003, it gave out $105,000 in proceeds from the 2002 festival. In 2004, there was no money distributed from the fund.

Suanne Pauley, San Diego Pride’s executive director, said it is not likely the grants will be awarded on an annual basis in the future.

“It’s not an automatic thing,” Pauley said. “I do not think we could afford to do that every year…. I think we have to look at our finances and year to year decide how successful the event was.”

Proceeds from this year’s event have yet to be tallied, though Pauley said sponsorship and vendor participation was about equal with last year’s event.

In addition to $100,000 fund grants, San Diego Pride gave $30,000 to the San Diego Foundation for Change, $15,000 in direct community support, $25,000 in partnerships and $55,000 to The Center – up from an average of about $50,000 last year and a prior average of $25,000. The San Diego Foundation for Change has received an annual award of $15,000 for the past 10 years that was increased to $30,000 last year.

Pauley said the board would decide how to divide proceeds from this year’s event next month.

“We generally decide our philanthropy at our [board] retreat in September,” she said.

Over the past 10 years, Pride has given out more than $840,000 in proceeds to San Diego’s GLBT community.

So far this year, the Human Dignity Foundation has awarded $22,500 from its charitable and donor advised funds.

For information about the Human Dignity Foundation’s boat cruise, call (619) 291-3383.