The 2024 grant cycle is closed. The 2025 grant cycle will open on June 1, 2024 and will close on August 15, 2024.
“The Jim Collins Foundation urges health insurance carriers and healthcare providers in the US to eliminate transgender exclusions and to provide coverage for transgender patients and the medically necessary prescribed sex reassignment services necessary for treatment and well-being, and to ensure that their ongoing health care is readily accessible.”
Welcome to the Jim Collins Foundation application process. Transition is not one-size fits all. Not every transgender person has a medical need for identical procedures. Clinically appropriate treatments must be determined on an individualized basis with one’s physician. If you and your doctor decide that surgery is part of your transition and you need financial support either because you do not have insurance or because your insurance excludes these medically necessary procedures, please submit your application for consideration for a Jim Collins Foundation grant.
Please note that we are an organization run by transgender people and our allies who understand the importance of accessing medically necessary transition-related care. We are working to assist as many people as possible, but, unfortunately, we will not be able to meet everyone’s needs. We recognize that many people have worked extremely hard and have made great sacrifices to cover the costs of their surgeries. We believe that each Jim Collins Foundation grant will be more meaningful if the applicant can demonstrate how they have worked to cover some part of the cost on their own.
How to Apply for a Grant
Jim Collins Foundation only receives applications via the form below. Once your application is submitted in its entirety, you will be redirected to a confirmation page on the website.
Only documents that are requested in the application should be submitted. Any additional documentation, photographs, works of art, or similar items will be discarded.
General Fund grants cover 100% of the surgical costs associated with the gender-affirming surgery. Applicants may only apply once per grant cycle.
We may contact you for further information, as needed. If you meet our minimum criteria, we will then bring your application before our Selection Committee. If your application is initially approved by the Selection Committee, you will be notified and your application will be passed to the final phase of committee review.
The Criteria for Selection
The Jim Collins Foundation is committed to empowering transgender and gender non-conforming people to speak for themselves, and to live beyond the pathology or diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria. However, today’s current healthcare and legal systems still require diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria to allow many steps of transition, including surgeries. Many legal, educational, and healthcare activists (including members of the Jim Collins Foundation Board of Directors and Advisory Board) are working to bring our social systems up to speed with the needs of our community’s diverse members. Until these social systems change, the Jim Collins Foundation is required to support recipients in taking steps that will ensure their success in transitioning – emotionally, legally, and socially. This is reflected in the criteria for selection, outlined below.
Criteria for selection include:
Applicant must understand the steps that are currently required to undergo the medical process of transition, and must have completed (or have outlined plans to complete) the following steps:
- Select a surgeon who is knowledgeable in transition-related surgeries. If applicant is chosen, the organization assumes this named surgeon is final.
- Identify who will care for and provide support post-surgery.
- If applicant has not completed all of these steps, but is planning to do so, please include your plans in your application.
- Note: If you are selected for funding, the payment will be made directly to the doctor or hospital facility. You must comply with any and all requirements according to the Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH), formerly known as the (Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, HBIGDA), as determined by your selected surgeon.
- Applicant must demonstrate a genuine need for financial assistance.
- Applicant must detail the efforts they have made to fund-raise and the amount of cost that they will be able to cover on their own, if any.
- The Jim Collins Foundation collects personal and medical information to determine eligibility for grants. This information will be shared with the Board of Directors, the Selection Committee, and possibly the surgeon selected in your application if a finalist.
The Jim Collins Foundation makes selections for grants based on a combination of demonstrated financial need and level of preparedness.