Sundance Association for Country-Western Dancing

$10 is all it takes to build a community! 
Donate by 9 pm PDT May 30!

We are competing for up to $10,000 in grant funding by the Horizons Foundation, to be awarded to the organizations with the greatest number of unique donors who give a minimum of $10 to their organization's Give Out Day page between May 1 and May 30. We came out on top last year and received that $10K! Help us achieve this award again!

Individuals should donate only once! Unique donors should have different names and email addresses, and we recommend different credit cards as well. PLEASE NOTE: Two $10 donations from two different people will be more valuable to us than one $20 donation.

The Sundance Association for Country-Western Dancing was formed in 1999 to provide education in and programs for country-western dancing in the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco. As an all-volunteer and community-supported nonprofit, the Sundance Association fosters individual growth and passion, encourages volunteerism and financial giving, and strives to create an inclusive and welcoming community.

The Sundance Association is much more than a listing of its projects would suggest. The contribution of the Sundance Association to the health of the greater LGBTQ community and the individuals within it cannot be overstated. All of the projects of the Sundance Association have a primary goal of developing a culture of welcoming inclusiveness. Attendees find there is no importance placed on attractiveness, dance ability, socio-economic status, age, race, ethnicity, gender identification, sexual orientation, or any of a myriad of classifications that traditionally separate us. As a result, we host a wide cross-section of the LGBTQ+ community (e.g. ages 20s to 80s, men and women and nonbinary, cis and trans, gay and straight), who all mix together effortlessly and dance with each other in a utopian environment that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. For many, Sundance Saloon is an essential place of healing and renewal from life's challenges, big and small.

The major projects of the Sundance Association include:

• Sundance Saloon. Twice-weekly dance lessons and open country-western dancing featuring a variety of dance forms including two-step, waltz, east coast swing, west coast swing, line dancing, and more. 
• The Sundance Stompede. An annual four-day country-western dance convention featuring four nights of large-scale dances and three days of educational dance workshops for all levels from beginning to advanced, attracting up to 800 people from all over the world.
• Community events. The Sundance Association hosts country-western dance events in association with other organizations and festivals, broadening its reach in the general LGBTQ+ community. Examples include events at the San Francisco Pride celebration and the Castro Street Fair.
• Community support. The Sundance Association assists with fundraising events for many other nonprofit organizations in San Francisco, and has helped raise over $520,000 over the past 26 years (examples: PRC, LGBT Asylum Project, Transgender Law Center, Openhouse, Larkin Youth Services, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Trans Lifeline, Rainbow World Fund, and many more).

Navigating the Sundance Association through the pandemic was a huge challenge from which we are still recovering. During the shutdown, we kept Sundance Saloon alive through weekly live-streamed line dance lessons and dancing, twice-weekly "Sundance In The Park" outdoor line dance events, Sundance Community Composite Videos, and even a Virtual Stompede (two full days of live-streamed dance instruction, a showcase of video dance exhibition performances, and live-streamed dance-along line dance event).

The Sundance Association has been dependent on the community for support more than ever these past few years. We hope you will support us during these difficult times, as we continue our community-building work. Give Out Day is the largest and most important fundraising event of our year. We hope you can spare $10 to help us receive the $10,000 grant we so desperately need.

More info: https://sundancesaloon.org