With Karamo hosting, .ORG awards stand by DEI: ‘We’ve embraced the category’

Before Karamo Brown, who now goes by only Karamo, became known as the culture expert on Netflix’s Queer Eye, a group of Black men at an LGBTQ+ center helped him imagine his own future.

“I remember that was the first time I started to believe, oh, I could live past 30,” Karamo told The Advocate, recalling finding community in Los Angeles at 21.

That experience informed his decision to host Tuesday’s eighth annual .ORG Impact Awards at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In interviews before the ceremony, Karamo and organizer Jon Nevett defended inclusion through its tangible consequences in housing, education, and the chance to grow up supported.

Public Interest Registry, the nonprofit behind the .org internet domain, recognized seven category winners selected from more than 4,200 applicants across 145 countries.

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Youth-led housing nonprofit TECHO received the $50,000 .ORG of the Year award, becoming the first Latin America-based organization to win, according to PIR. It works alongside residents of informal settlements on housing, basic services, and community organizing.

Nigeria’s Boys Champions Foundation won the diversity, equity, and inclusion category for promoting caring masculinity, mental health, and gender equality.

For Karamo, 45, a gay Black father of two sons, Jason and Christian, and now a grandfather to a baby boy, that work is personal. Asked what he had unlearned about masculinity and hoped to teach his sons, he described the persistent pressure on men to suppress their feelings.

“I think men, period, are taught to keep things in, to hold things in,” he said. He recently challenged a friend who told her crying son to toughen up, explaining how such messages teach boys to silence themselves.

Now, he said, his grandson adds another dimension to that responsibility.

Related: Karamo Brown pulls out of 'Queer Eye' interview because he felt 'mentally and emotionally abused'

“I’ve got to make sure that this next generation really understands that you got to know that your strength comes in communicating your vulnerabilities,” Karamo said. “And that’s where the healing comes as well.”

Karamo also criticized politicians who stoke resentment toward inclusion, urged participation in the midterm elections, and accused President Donald Trump of “destroying the fabric of our country.”

Nevett, PIR’s president and CEO, said nonprofits face financial pressures from lost U.S. government support.

“The need hasn’t gone away,” he said.

PIR said this year’s $180,000 in donations brought the awards’ cumulative giving to more than $1 million. “We have a DEI category. We’ve embraced the category,” Nevett said.

Karamo's advice for supporting others begins with asking what they need.

“When we talk about support, it can’t be some generic thing,” he said. “It has to be individual.”