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Rainbow Humanitarianism
   

 Who We Are

Rainbow World Fund (RWF) is an all-volunteer international humanitarian service agency based in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and friends community. RWF’s mission is to promote LGBT philanthropy in the area of world humanitarian relief.

Founded in 2000 by members of the San Francisco LGBT community, RWF works to help people who suffer from hunger, poverty, disease, oppression and war by raising awareness and funds to support relief efforts around the world. RWF works in the LGBT and friends community educating people about world need. Along with raising our community’s consciousness, RWF raises funds to support humanitarian relief projects. RWF provides a united voice, a visible presence, and a structure to deliver charitable assistance from the LGBT community to the larger world community.

RWF has evolved in to a national organization and is unique as the worlds first and only LGBT based humanitarian aid organization. RWF currently supports projects focusing on global HIV/AIDS, water development, landmine eradication, hunger, education, orphans and disaster relief in Africa, Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States. RWF also works to raise awareness of the charitable contributions of the LGBT community, and to establish connections with non-LGBT communities. RWF programs strengthen our community by increasing LGBT visibility, serving as a platform for our community’s compassion and concern and changing how the world sees LGBT people by building bridges with the larger world community.

RWF’s philosophy is that we are all “One Human Family” and that we are living in a time that tells us that our survival on this planet depends on us all giving more to each other. We bring people together who believe that together we can heal the world. We believe that LGBT people like all people have a unique role in world healing. RWF is part of that healing. We are working to change the separation consciousness that is underlying the disparity in the world – how people feel divided in the world today – by racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on. RWF is about reminding people that we are really all part of one big global family and the we need to help each other.

Rainbow World Fund has three primary goals – to provide humanitarian aid to communities in need around the world; to create awareness within the LGBT community of the need for these relief efforts; and to change perceptions of the LGBT community by putting our highest beliefs and values into action demonstrating our compassion and caring for the world. RWF’s projects affect social change at home and abroad through education, networking, developing solidarity, fostering understanding and building community.

RWF develops partnerships with the most effective organizations that best reflect our guiding principles: empowerment, sustainability, peacemaking, measurable impact and ecological awareness. Our partners include Adopt-A-Minefield, Africare, America's Second Harvest, CARE, and Water Partners International. RWF also conducts global awareness tours to Central America.

RWF's is a volunteer run 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Our EIN is 94-3372560. We are Guidestar registered.

RWF's Efficiency

RWF is an all volunteer run organization and we work hard to multiply every dollar we receive. In recent years we have grown each dollar received for RWF program services into at least 33 dollars in monetary aid, medicine and supplies, which we then distributed. Our overhead and fundraising costs have averaged 3 percent or less since our inception. Most of RWF's administrative and fund-raising expenses have been covered by Board of Director contributions and small grants. Learn more about RWF's donation policy and the specifics of efficiency here: http://rainbowfund.org/donate/

More info is available in our 2008 Annual Report (pdf).
Also available for viewing is our 2007 Annual Report, 2006 Annual Report, 2005 Annual Report (pdf)

RWF's Recent Accomplishments

RWF has distributed over 2 million dollars in humanitarian aid (supplies and grants) over the last 5 years: providing food aid for Hurricane evacuees (including funding 1 million meals for Hurricane Katrina survivors), emergency supplies for the South East Asia tsunami, medical supplies and financial aid to various projects in Guatemala, funding water projects throughout Central America providing safe drink water to hundreds, delivering thousands of pounds of medicine, medical supplies, and school supplies to communities in Mexico, launching of a landmine eradication project for Cambodia, an HIV/AIDS case management program in South Africa funding the monthly salaries of rural HIV peer educators, providing a computer lab to a Guatemalan middle school, producing a benefit concert for Haiti, traveling to Washington DC annually to advocate on Capitol Hill for development and aid issues, and delivering thousands of stuffed animals to children in hospitals, schools and orphanages.

RWF was recognized for it's humanitarian aid by the California State Assembly following the tsunami and for helping Haiti recover from Hurricane Jeanne in 2004. RWF's founder, Jeff Cotter, was named to the OUT 100 List as one of the most intriguing people of 2005. San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom and Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, have also recognized RWF's work. RWF was honored as the 2007 Organizational Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade.

Articles/interviews about RWF have appeared in publications/media throughout the United States (Adocate.com, Gay.com, Sirius Radio, Q-TV, Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Dallas Voice, B.A.R., Bay Windows, BayTimes, Windy City News, Scene Magazine, Our Magazine, Lesbian Notions and others), Canada, Europe, Australia (DNA), and Asia.

Staff

Jeff Cotter, Executive Director

Founder of RWF, Jeff Cotter is a psychiatric social worker specializing in trauma recovery and HIV/AIDS case management. Cotter practices in San Francisco, California. He has worked in the HIV/AIDS and LGBT civil rights fields since 1987.

Chris Bates, Administrative Manager

Audrey Heller, Communications Specialist

Audrey Heller is a San Francisco artist and a freelance consultant who is ferocious with a red editing pen. She shows her photography all over the country, but stays involved with local community projects, among them curating the Spectrum Art Auction.  She is proud to be part of the "friends" community.

www.audreyheller.com

Michael Norton, Project Manager

An audit specialist for a firm in Marin County, CA, Mike has volunteered for the Red Cross and numerous other organizations. He is currently in the U.S. Airforce Reserves and has been actively involved in delivering medical and humanitarian supplies to world wide locations such as after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America, the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia and the earthquake in Iran.

Josh Feldman , Technology and Graphic Design

Doris Kizzina, Administative Specialist

Kizinna has worked primarily with youth and young adults in a variety of settings. She is currently on Conference Staff for the United Church of Canada. Kizinna's passion is encountering the world with groups of youth and young adults and she has led Global Awareness trips to Guatemala and Cuba on many occasions.

Karen Dickinson, Grant Writer

 

Advisory Board

Darren John Main

Darren is an internationally known yoga and meditation instructor and author. His books include Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic, Spiritual Journeys Along the Yellow Brick Road and The Findhorn Book of Meditation.

Christian de la Huerta

Del la Huerta is author of Coming Out Spiritually, chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best religion books of 1999. His writing has appeared in OUT, The Advocate, Hero, Genre, and other publications. He is founder and president of Q-Spirit, an organization catalyzing the necessary conditions for LGBT people to fully reclaim their spiritual roles of service, leadership and community enrichment.

George R. Melton

Melton is the co-author of  Beyond AIDS: A Journey Into Healing. George has traveled extensively throughout the United States lecturing about his personal journey of living with AIDS. Change begins with the development of self-love, he believes. He writes: "When this disease has run its course, we will emerge... as a changed race of people, one that recognizes and practices the loving acceptance of all people."

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jeffrey A. Cotter
Founder-President

A psychiatric social worker specializing in trauma recovery and HIV/AIDS case management. Cotter practices in San Francisco, California. Cotter has worked in the HIV/AIDS and LGBT civil rights fields since 1987.

Education: Masters of Social Work, 1990, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Baccalaureate of Science, Management Information System, 1985, Old Dominion University.

Bradford C. Hubert
Secretary-Treasurer

A Senior Audit Leader at Wells Fargo, Hubert serves as treasurer on several social justice-oriented religious organization boards of directors and has been active in his local congregation since 1998. He is also a member and supporter of other organizations promoting equal rights and care and support for people with HIV/AIDS. He also served as treasurer and board member of an organization aiding at-risk youth in the early 1990s.

Education: Bachelor of Business Administration, 1990, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.

Karen N. Kai

An independent research and writing consultant, Kai is a community activist who has served on the boards of local, statewide and national Asian American, civil and human rights organizations. She is a former Chairperson of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and served as co-chair of its LGBT Advisory Board.

Education: J.D., University of San Francisco, 1978; San Francisco State University, Bachelor of Arts, Political Science, 1975.

Sister Jeannine Gramick, IBVM, PhD

A reform-minded Roman Catholic nun, activist and co-founder of New Ways Ministry - helping LGBT Roman Catholics in the United States. She has a doctorate in Mathematics Education from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1971, Gramick began working with gays and lesbians. In 2000, Gramick and New Ways co-founder Father Robert Nugent were ordered by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI) to cease ministering to gays and lesbians due to the Church’s teaching that same-sex relationships are sinful. While Nugent formally acquiesced to the decision by resigning from New Ways, Gramick respectfully set aside the order altogether. Gramick is the author of several books on LGBT Catholic issues. The documentary In Good Conscience details her journey of activism, the Vatican’ attempt to silence her and her decision to disregard the attempt.

Education: Doctorate in Mathematics Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Lisa Capaldini, MD, MPH

An Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF, Capaldini has been in private practice in Internal Medicine with an emphasis on care of people with HIV disease since 1988. Capaldini's areas of interest include quality of life, the doctor-patient relationship and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders in the primary care setting.

Education: M.D., 1982, University of California, San Francisco; Masters of Public Health, 1982, University of California, Berkeley; Baccalaureate of Arts, in the History of Ideas, 1978, Williams College.