Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation Mission:

“The Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation changes lives by supporting organizations that promote a happy, healthy and connected Bay Area LGBT community.”
“Grass Roots” refers to how the Foundation raises resources, which is primarily from the work of volunteers who organize our events and from our Circle of Friends who host, buy tickets and attend our events. Grass Roots also refer to what we look for in our beneficiaries, meaning the ability to create measurable local positive social impact for the diverse populations that make up San Francisco’s LGBT community. We celebrate and support a diverse range of beneficiaries that represent the wide range of people and issues in the Bay Area’s LGBT community. This includes beneficiaries that serve several populations, sustain any single distinct group, or focus on important issues that affect these diverse populations.

Today, as the Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation, our board, working group, hosts and members work year-round to create world-class events that dazzle our guests and raise significant grant funds to support Bay Area organizations that create a happy, healthy and connected LGBT communities.

Board of Directors

Dave Hendrickson

Dave is our board President. Originally pulled to the Bay Area during the great internet gold rush of the ‘90s, Dave quickly established himself in the vibrant and diverse San Francisco community that he...

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would soon call home. Dave joined the working group for REAL BAD XV. He served in several roles in the production of the Party, including the Event Chair for REAL BAD XVII. Dave joined the board of the Foundation in 2010. Dave is the Customer Success Manager at cloud solutions company FinancialForce.com. He and his husband, working group member Daniel Sonnenfeld, love to travel and do so as much as budget & vacation time allow. Recently he has become very involved at San Francisco’s Public Glass, where he is an artist.‬

Richard Dellefave

Richard has served on the board of the Foundation for eight years, having served as President and Treasurer. After attending his first REAL BAD in 2003...

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he joined the working group and found an organization that represents the best of San Francisco – gay men and women working at the grassroots level to improve and enrich the lives of those around them. He served as the Marketing Chair for 2 years, the Sponsorship Chair for 2 year, the Event Chair for REAL BAD XXII and the Beneficiary Chair. Richard has a J.D. and is also a CPA with RINA accountancy corporation, a public accounting firm in the Bay Area where he is an Audit Manager.

Gina Gatta

Gina moved from Rhode Island to San Francisco in 1983 and lived with her older brother who tended bar at the legendary Trocadero Transfer. She would grow up...

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quickly in the next decade as she lost half of her newfound family, primarily gay men, to the AIDS pandemic. Throughout the ‘90s Gina poured her energies into expanding the Damron titles as owner and publisher of the popular LGBT travel guides since 1989. After being asked to co-chair the 1998 World AIDS Day at the National AIDS Memorial Grove, she joined their Board in 1999, serving as secretary for 4 years and Board co-chair since 2009. Gina has followed DJs and circuit parties around the world for over two decades and has attended all but three Real Bad parties.‬

Noah Breyer

Having lived in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, Noah developed his dancing legs, and his passion for well-produced parties, house music and friendly boys...

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on the dance floors of CareFree, Uranus, the original Sound Factory, Universe and Pleasuredome. His passion for producing parties emerged at an early age, while still in college, and has enjoyed crafting high quality, creative and trend-setting dance events that have become benchmarks by which other parties are now measured. As a partner in Past Curfew, Inc and a producer of PLAY T-Dance, from 2006 and 2011, Noah helped to redefine the classic ’tea dance,” ensuring that the fun and joy of dancing remained an important part of the San Francisco club goer's experience. In 2002 Noah joined the REAL BAD XIV Working Group and over the next 7 years built his skills, experience and leadership by taking on many important roles including Production Chair, Event Chair and eventually charter President of the newly formed Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation non-profit board of directors. After a five year hiatus, Noah returns to Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation as Treasurer and envisions a strong organization raising funds for important community organizations that are making a difference in the community.

Alex Sloan

Alex join the board of the Foundation in 2013 having served as a host and attendee of REAL BAD for over a decade. He has worked for years in the venture capital...

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industry investing in a wide variety of innovative technologies. He has also been active in philanthropy over two decades including serving for over 22 years as Founding Chairman and President of the Excelerate Foundation, which supports innovative organizations nationally in the areas of community development, social entrepreneurship, environmental education and healthcare services.

Jonathan Foulk

Jonathan joined the board of the Foundation in 2013. He has been a leader in the community and always looking for ways to give back. His background has been...

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working for national and local non-profits. He has produced events all around the United States from major street fairs to small intimate fundraisers raising over $1 million dollars. Jonathan brings a fresh perspective to our events. Some of his goals are to grow our donor base so that the Foundation can live on for the next twenty-five years and beyond. As well as thinking of new fundraising tools in leveraging the world of technology.

Events Working Group

2017 Events Chair
Eric Holmgren

Our Legacy

The legend lives on…
twenty-nine years
and beyond…

The tradition of the Circle of Friends began in 1989 when a group of friends came together to host a celebration of life. Though the first REAL BAD dance event was small, those who attended knew the event was special and that it would continue for years to come.

In the early 90s, many event organizers in the LGBT community focused primary on raising money for AIDS- and HIV-related organizations. The organizers of REAL BAD, however, wanted to emulate an East Coast organization with a broader focus—Grass Roots Gay Rights Fund (GRGRF). The goal of that organization was to support groups defending LGBT rights and working for policy change. Inspired by GRGRF, Grass Roots Gay Rights West (GRGR/West) was founded in 1991 to pursue similar goals in the Bay Area through the REAL BAD party.

Initially, the organizers chose a different beneficiary each year, and they selected organizations dedicated to the advancement of LGBT civil rights. The beneficiaries received grants from the event proceeds, and many nationally recognized non-profits were recipients. Over time, the success of REAL BAD allowed for a second organization to receive funding from the event proceeds each year.

Now some 29 years later, REAL BAD has become the preeminent dance event of the Folsom Street Fair weekend with over 2000 men and women dancing the night away and generating funds to support many valued service organizations that serve the Bay Area LGBT community.

The REAL BAD event operating and production costs are covered by the event sponsors, in-kind donations, and funds from host registrations. This approach allows 100 percent of general admission ticket sales to go directly to the beneficiaries.

For a complete history of the evolution of the REAL BAD party, please click here.

In more recent years, the Foundation has branched out to present other fundraising dance events during the year including REACH over Gay Pride weekend. These events generate additional funds that go to our beneficiaries. The Foundation is also pleased to work closely with organizers of and support the beneficiaries of Flagging in the Park a premier outdoor flow-arts fundraising event held monthly between May and October in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

And most importantly, over the last 29 years, we have raised and granted to charitable organizations over $2.5 million!

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TOO.

CONTACTING US

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