The Our Fund Foundation, an LGBTQ-based group, has been named the recipient of the Carbonell Awards’ Vinnette Carroll Award for “outstanding achievement in advancing diversity, equality and inclusion in South Florida theater.”
The Wilton Manors group is dedicated to building a more inclusive region by connecting philanthropy with purpose. Founded in 2011, Our Fund stewards $30 million in assets and awards approximately $2.5 million annually to nonprofit organizations serving the LGBTQ community and its allies.
The announcement Tuesday states, “From the arts to social services, Our Fund invests in organizations that ensure every South Floridian — regardless of who they are or whom they love — can see themselves reflected, represented, and celebrated. Our Fund is proud to support a theater community where inclusion isn’t an aspiration, but a standard.”
Playwright Michael McKeever hails Our Fund for “playing a significant role in transforming the region’s cultural landscape (through grants that) support everything from queer dance and theater to LGBTQ+ cinema and historic preservation, providing broader audiences to marginalized voices.”
Martin Childers, managing director of Island City Stage, describes the Foundation as “a transformative force in South Florida’s cultural landscape… (making an impact that) can be measured not only in dollars awarded, but in the countless artists, audiences, and organizations whose work has been sustained and strengthened through their generosity. By investing in arts and culture, championing equity, and responding decisively when the community needed them most, the Our Fund Foundation has become an indispensable partner” at a time when government funding of the Arts has become particularly precarious.
The recognition is named after the groundbreaking theater pioneer, producer, director and actress who died in 2002. She had a New York career that included being the only African-American woman to have received a Tony Award nomination for direction. But she moved to Fort Lauderdale in the 1980s and opened the Vinnette Carroll Repertory Company until illness sidelined her in 2001.
The award is one of nine special awards to be presented at the 49th annual ceremony Nov. 16 at FAU’s University Theatre in Boca Raton.
The others are being announced here one a week.
All the 2026 Special Award recipients were nominated by members of South Florida’s theater community with the Carbonell Board of Directors making the final selection.
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