✨ We are overwhelmed with gratitude. ✨
Ariana Grande and the Brighter Days Ahead Foundation are supporting Stimpunks.
The Brighter Days Ahead Foundation works to strengthen vulnerable communities by providing direct support to small organisations, prioritising trans and LGBTQ+ advocacy and protection. The foundation directly funds small, grassroots organisations doing care work for communities the world too often treats as disposable. We recognise that work. It is our work too.
In a time when neurodiversity is being misrepresented and weaponised, being seen and championed by Ariana and her foundation means everything to our communities, and to us.
Ariana Grande named an album Eternal Sunshine and a foundation Brighter Days Ahead. We heard our own language in both.
Authenticity is our purest freedom.
Authenticity is our Eternal Sunshine.
Eternal Sunshine is Starlight. So are you.
Love You Down to Your Star Stuff
LYSS. ★☀️
Authenticity is our eternal sunshine, and brighter days are built together.
As seen in the MoonMars Museum
We wrote about what this means to us at:
https://stimpunks.org/star-stuff/eternal-sunshine/
To be seen like this — championed, not pitied; trusted, not tested — is rare. There were no forms to fill, no worth to prove, no temporal lottery to win. That is not a small kindness. It is the whole argument.
Because how you are funded says whether you are believed. And most philanthropy says the opposite of what Brighter Days Ahead just said to us.
The Future of Philanthropy
Philanthropy so often claims to be addressing inequity and inequality while reinforcing, perpetuating, and exacerbating it.
Lydia X.Z. Brown Powerfully Addresses Philanthropy’s Ableist Practices
Time is not equally distributed. Chronically ill and disabled people, caregivers, people managing poverty — these are the people doing front-line community work. They are also the people with the least time to spend navigating grant applications designed for well-resourced organizations with dedicated staff.
Lydia X.Z. Brown names this precisely: philanthropy reinforces the same inequities it claims to address. Liz Jackson, crediting her collaborator Alex Haagaard, describes “temporal lotteries” — where the buy-in isn’t money, but time. Organizations working closest to community are the least likely to win that lottery. This is not a bug. It is by design. It is how philanthropic capital stays in familiar hands.
Stimpunks built our grant process to not do this. We keep it simple on purpose. The people who most need aid should not have to spend what little they have to access it.
Likewise, Brighter Days Ahead Foundation is doing exactly what this moment in the world needs. They are providing funds to those working on the front lines of pluralism and survival with no strings attached, no lengthy forms to fill out, no temporal lottery. Trust-based giving like this funds the people closest to the need, cuts the burden, and trusts the org or person. Funders got to “trust the recipient” through “nothing about us without us,” and the rest of philanthropy is now catching up to what disabled communities have practiced all along.
U.S. disability rights activist Ed Roberts said “If there is one thing we have learned from the civil rights movement in the US, it’s that when other people speak for you, you lose”. A charity approach, in which ‘beneficiaries’ are the object of donations or ‘care’, is directly opposed to the famous disability rights slogan which originated in the South African disability movement: “nothing about us without us.”
We need more of this style of giving. We’re dying out here. Disability support systems are being dismantled on every front. Meanwhile, for every $10 in U.S. grantmaking, only about one penny goes to disability.
References
- Lydia X.Z. Brown Powerfully Addresses Philanthropy’s Ableist Practices
- Philanthropic Gentrification. How The David Prize turns activists… | by Liz Jackson | Medium
- Autistic Hoya — A blog by Lydia X. Z. Brown: The neurodiversity movements needs its shoes off, and fists up.
- The Power of Participation: How Philanthropy Can Center People on the Margins – Disability & Philanthropy Forum
- Ariana Grande’s Newest Project Is Her Most Ambitious Yet
- Community Living Is Being Dismantled on Every Front at Once – Stimpunks Foundation
- Where Are We Now? – Disability & Philanthropy Forum
Press Release
Photos: Ariana Grande and Stimpunks at the Moody Center in Austin on June 27th, 2026
News Coverage
Stimpunks is a mutual aid nonprofit organization that was built “by and for neurodivergent and disabled people,” according to its website. The group provides mutual aid, creator grants, human-centered learning, and living wages for neurodivergent and disabled people.
It also publishes open learning pathways, a glossary, and a field guide anyone can use.
The nonprofit’s website states its team does research and offers services to help schools, clinicians, and organizations “do better by us.”
Stimpunks co-creative director Ryan Boren said via email, “There has been lots of happy crying in our community,” in response to Grande’s support.
The foundation made a post online celebrating Grande’s support. It said in part, “In a time when neurodiversity is being misrepresented and weaponised, being seen and championed by Ariana and her foundation means everything to our communities, and to us.”
Boren added in his email, “Authenticity is our eternal sunshine, and brighter days are built together.”
Ariana Grande spotlights several Austin nonprofits during 3 Moody Center shows | KXAN Austin
Stimpunks is a mutual aid nonprofit organization that was built “by and for neurodivergent and disabled people,” according to its website. The group provides mutual aid, creator grants, human-centered learning, and living wages for neurodivergent and disabled people.
It also publishes open learning pathways, a glossary, and a field guide anyone can use.
The nonprofit’s website states its team does research and offers services to help schools, clinicians, and organizations “do better by us.”
Ariana Grande spotlights several Austin nonprofits during 3 Moody Center shows
- Ariana Grande spotlights several Austin nonprofits during 3 Moody Center shows – AOL
- Ariana Grande Launches Brighter Days Ahead Foundation to Fund LGBTQ+, Mental Health, and Crisis Support Groups – Wealth of Geeks
- Ariana Grande Launches Brighter Days Ahead Foundation
- Ariana Grande Launches The Brighter Days Ahead Foundation: Details
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