NOTE: To download a PDF version of this report, VOICE Buffalo.
VOICE Buffalo
UPDATE OCTOBER 2025: Our previous investigation of VOICE Buffalo revealed that the organization and its leadership were openly promoting homosexual ideologies and supporting organizations that promote LGBTQ and abortion ideologies. That information will follow this update.
Our last report revealed that VOICE Buffalo had received ten grants since 2007 for a collective amount of $515,000. Since then, VOICE Buffalo has received two additional grants, including its most recent grant for the 2022-2023 fiscal year of $60,000. 
In addition to what we have already reported, VOICE Buffalo’s most recent violations of Catholic moral teaching (and CCHD grant guidelines) include:
- Continued support LGBTQ causes
- Continued support for abortion
- Continuing to partner with organizations that support LGBTQ and abortion
Support for Pride Festivals
On July 17, 2025, VOICE Buffalo made a post on Facebook encouraging people to attend a disability pride festival 
Leadership in Favor of LGBTQ
In addition to directly supporting pride events, VOICE Buffalo continues to employ individuals who proudly flaunt their support for the LGBTQ community. Take for example Kartika Carr a former Secretary and Lead Fundraising Organizer for VOICE Buffalo, who was the owner of a Pro-LGBTQ coffee shop while working for VOICE Buffalo. You can see her job history from LinkedIn and ProPublica here: 
As you can see Kartika Carr was working for VOICE Buffalo and her coffee shop from 2020-2021. During this time her coffee shop made several posts on Facebook in celebration of Pride month. The first of these posts was made on June 25, 2021, in which they were promoting an event they were hosting, celebrating womxn in honor of Pride month.
Two days later on June 27, 2021, Khari’s made another post and at the bottom they included things such as “#pridemonth #pride
#pride2021″
Support for the Women’s March and Pro-Abortion Events
On May 17, 2025, VOICE Buffalo made a post in which they expressed how proud they were to promote the 2025 Women’s March, 
A year prior on May 19, 2024, an organization named Agents for Advocacy hosted an event in which they had a Pro-abortion women’s doula named Shyana Broughton be one of their main speakers. VOICE Buffalo sponsored this event.
Here you can see Shyana Broughton’s clear support for abortion
A few months later on September 24, 2024, VOICE Buffalo promoted a Sorority event which would discuss “student loan debt, affordable housing, environmental justice, and reproductive rights”
Maintaining its Partnership with the WNY Peace Center
As of today, VOICE Buffalo continues to be partnered with the WNY Peace Project, which we showed in our last report hosts Women’s Marches across the country with the stated goal of the marches being pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ. See the previous report for additional information on the WNY Peace Center. Link to the WNY Allies and Partners page.
Updated Conclusion
Given that VOICE Buffalo had already been found supporting LGBTQ and transgender causes, while also maintaining active partnerships with organizations that support abortion in our previous reports, this additional information that VOICE Buffalo has continued to support LGBTQ events and has employed people who also support LGBTQ, still supports the Women’s March and abortion, and still maintains its partnership with the WNY Peace Project further substantiates our previous report and shows that CCHD has no interest or intention of halting Catholic funds from organizations attacking Catholic teaching. There is no excuse for VOICE Buffalo to have continued to receive funds after our previous revelations, and now, things are worse. For this reason, the Lepanto Institute is renewing its call for the USCCB to close down the CCHD permanently.
The Previous Report
Since 2007, VOICE Buffalo has received $515,000 from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, including its most recent grant of $60,000 for the 2020-2021 grants cycle.
VOICE Buffalo was pegged by the Lepanto Institute in 2019 because much of its leadership (at the time) were actively promoting abortion, homosexuality, and even the Occult. We also exposed the fact that VOICE Buffalo was actively (on social media) promoting homosexual and transgender ideologies and that it was a member of a couple of organizations that had formally advanced grave immorality, in conflict with Catholic teaching. You can read that report here.
Currently, VOICE Buffalo has continued its promotions of homosexual and transgender ideologies, is a member of the openly pro-abortion Faith in Action network, is a member of the pro-abortion and pro-LGBT WNY Peace Center, and was a sponsor and participant in the 2022 Women’s March, which is formally pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ.
VOICE Buffalo’s social media posts regarding LGBTQ ideologies haven’t changed, and currently remain active on their facebook page:
This tweet from 2018 shows VOICE-Buffalo’s support for homosexual activism.
As does this Facebook post from June 3, 2018, which has the gall to overlay the words of St. Paul over a homosexual pride rainbow:
Since then, VOICE Buffalo’s social media promotion of homosexual and transgender ideologies has continued, such as is seen in this retweeted message:
In addition to this, VOICE Buffalo was a co-sponsor for the Women’s March WNY 2022. On May 12, 2022, WNY Peace Center thanked VOICE Buffalo for being a sponsor of the Women’s March WNY 2022.
In order to become a co-sponsor of the Women’s March WNY 2022, the organization had to fill out this application form which required the applying organization to “affirm [the] principles/goals” of the March (contained in the Mission of the March). The Mission of the March was directly pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ saying, “We seek structural and systematic changes to our government and organizations in order to guarantee that all women have proper access to healthcare … ” which is a euphemism for women’s access to abortion and contraception. It also says, “we value the dignity and humanity of … lgbt/queer and gender non-conforming people, and everyone’s equal place in the movement and in society,” which means ensuring such individuals are free to flaunt their immoral and scandalous ideologies without any opposition.
To prove the point that the mission statement means what we just indicated, this is a posted picture from their march. Note the sign being held up in the foreground.
Those signs could be seen all over the event. While it’s unclear in this image what they say, when blowing the image up, it clearly says, “In Our America … Women are in charge of their own bodies … Love is Love.”
But VOICE Buffalo didn’t just sponsor the event; it actively participated in it. On May 14, 2022, WNY Peace Center published its program, listing all of the speakers of the march. Identified among the speakers is Rev. Denise Walden, Director of VOICE Buffalo.
And to completely confirm the pro-abortion nature of the event, here is one of the speakers railing against laws criminalizing abortion. The speaker says, “The only thing a ban will do? It will not stop abortions. It will stop safe abortions.” She also said, “Individuals who engage in abortion, they too will be arrested, and we cannot allow that.”
Another of the speakers, from the “We Exist Coalition,” and LGBT organization, spoke for 7 minutes promoting transgender ideologies and agendas.
Of course, VOICE Buffalo’s participation in the Women’s March WNY isn’t surprising in the least, considering the fact that VOICE Buffalo is a member of the WNY Peace Center, which has, itself, taken positions in favor of abortion and LGBTQ ideologies.
WNY Peace Center lists VOICE Buffalo as an “organizational member.”
The CCHD absolutely forbids organizations from membership in organizations acting against Catholic teaching. In an FAQ on the USCCB website, the CCHD directly answers the question about whether grantees may be members of coalitions that oppose Catholic teachings. In answer, the CCHD firmly stated, “CCHD will not fund groups that are knowingly members of coalitions that have as part of their organizational purpose or coalition agenda, positions or actions that contradict fundamental Catholic moral and social teaching.”
Given that, VOICE Buffalo should have been denied any future funding after 2019 when we first reported that VOICE Buffalo was a member of WNY Peace Center due to the center’s consistent push for abortion, Planned Parenthood, and LGBTQ ideologies.
Under the heading “Gender Justice,” the WNY Peace Center firmly states that it is fighting for LGBTQ “rights” as well as “bodily autonomy.” Given the hashtag “stop the bans,” it is clear that bodily autonomy is a reference to abortion.
WNY Peace Center states that all the issues it pushes via taskforces, including abortion and homosexuality, are interconnected: “While our nine taskforces focus on issue areas such as Gender Justice, Racial Justice, Prisoners’ Rights, Immigrant & Refugee Justice, Resist Militarism!, etc., we stress the interconnectedness of our issues, Uniting in the Struggle and Movement-Building.” (emphasis added, source: //wnypeace.org/wp/about/history/)
WNY Peace Center has a “Gender Justice” task force that promotes homosexual activism, donating to Planned Parenthood and boasts about a picture of a “uterus giving the finger.”
WNY Peace Center also promoted a Planned Parenthood rally as well as an event in support of abortion.
WNY Peace Center also promoted a Planned Parenthood rally as well as an event in support of abortion.
Perhaps not surprisingly, WNY Peace Center’s list of partners includes Planned Parenthood, CNY & WNY.
In addition to being a member of WNY Peace Center, VOICE Buffalo is an affiliate of the radically pro-abortion Faith in Action, as can be seen here.
Faith in Action is a coalition of 49 members, many of whom receive funding from the CCHD. Faith in Action itself received $500,000 in 2016 from the CCHD, when it was called the PICO Network. However, Faith in Action publicly supports abortion, its leaders openly slammed the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and FIA participated in electioneering activities in support of President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates. The organization also supports LGBTQ+ ideologies. All of the pertinent information regarding Faith in Action on the whole is contained in the fully detailed report on FIA (see here), but the most important point is this:
On the day of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson case which overturned Roe v. Wade, Faith in Action took a formal position condemning the ruling, while vowing to “stand with women” calling it “oppression” to deny a woman the right to murder her child through abortion.
In an official press release, published on Faith in Action’s website, Faith in Action said:
“Clergy and organizers with Faith in Action, the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States, are speaking out against today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, following a leak of the Supreme Court opinion.”
FIA’s executive director Rev. Alvin Herring called the decision, “a huge blow to women in this season of despair,” and declared that ”[w]e must speak out against dangerous policies that chip away at having agency over their own bodies.”
Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, FIA’s Senior Strategist at FIA’s Washington, DC office, claimed that the “SCOTUS decision to overturn ROE” was “legalized, judicially enforced oppression” that “shows contempt for the Creator.”
Rev. Kamilah Hall Sharp, member of FIA’s Organizing Clergy Board, said that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was “deadly,” and that she was “enraged at the injustice, the lack of care for women and that most people who voted to take this right away will never have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term in their bodies.” She then had the audacity to claim that “As a follower of Jesus,” her rage about the overturning of Roe “aligns with [H]is.”
This is the entire statement as it appeared on the Faith in Action website:
Conclusion
There is absolutely no excuse for VOICE Buffalo to be receiving funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. It actively promotes LGBTQ ideologies on social media. It was a sponsor for a pro-abortion, pro-LGBT event called the Women’s March WNY. And it is a member of two radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ organizations (WNY Peace Center and Faith in Action) in direct violation of CCHD grant guidelines.
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