Mukti Fund supports a safe, thriving, and resilient queer college climate at UCF, Valencia College, and Seminole State.

Queer excellence, leadership development, learning, and community collaboration.

The Mukti Fund is a small private foundation established in 1983. For many years it funded cultural heritage and environmental projects in the eastern Caribbean country of St. Kitts and Nevis. After completing that program in 2005, the Mukti Fund began supporting Queer youth initiatives as part of a funding circle with Liberty Hill Foundation. In 2009, we started the Queer Youth Theater Fund (QYTF).

A total of nearly $2 million dollars was awarded to theaters, the Pride Youth Theater Alliance, and to the annual convening of QYT directors and young people. In 2021, Mukti Fund began exploring funding opportunities in central Florida focusing on LGBTQ youth issues. Now in 2024, the Mukti Fund has supported multiple central Florida colleges in fostering community and leadership development among their students.

Projects

Central Florida Campus Collaboration & Queer Excellence Program

The Central Florida Campus Collaboration and the Queer Excellence Program were initiated with the goal of fostering a safe, thriving, and resilient queer college atmosphere in the Central Florida region. To support this initiative, the Mukti Board engaged with local queer college students to understand their key concerns and needs. The primary areas of focus identified were promoting queer excellence, facilitating networking opportunities for students to thrive beyond college, and providing direct support by discussing and connecting individual college campuses in Central Florida.

Queer Youth Theater offered queer and allied youth safe spaces to creatively express themselves while providing unique methods for representing and empowering queer voices in their community.

Queer Youth Theater Project

A vision to ensure all six-year old children can swim.

Splash Float Swim

How a small foundation can make a difference. The first St. Kitts and Nevis grants initiated in the 1985-1989 period by Mike Dively, with support from founding trustee Martin Dupuis and newly elected trustees Bill Moody and then Tom Fox.

St. Kitts Nevis Project

  • "Theatre was my first love. I can’t take the theatre out of me, and I wouldn’t want to. Carolinas Pride Theatre Ensemble is home for me."

    Christopher Jacobs, ensemble member

  • "interACTionZ continues working to create safe and inclusive spaces to connect, create, and share in ways that impact the community."

  • “This conference is always an amazing experience and I am astounded by the fact I have the chance to have these experiences.”

    Bella, Lavender Council