The Leroy F. Aarons scholarship and Kay Longcope Scholarship are awarded each year to deserving students who are dedicated to furthering NLGJA's mission of fostering fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues.

The 2013 award recipient of the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship is Dartunorro Clark. Clark attends Columbia University.

The fourth annual recipient of the Kay Longcope Scholarship Award is Mario Montalvo. Montalvo attends Texas Christian University. 

The Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established in 2006 through a gift by CNN. Named in memory of Leroy F. Aarons, founder of NLGJA and a founding member of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established to support the education of a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student pursuing a journalism career.

The Kay Longcope Scholarship Award seeks to further the role of diversity in the education of our next generation of newsroom leaders by providing tuition assistance to a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student of color who plans a career in journalism. Longcope was co-founder of The Texas Triangle, a statewide newsweekly focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, and is generally regarded as the first out reporter at the Boston Globe. The pioneering Longcope started writing for the Globe in 1970 and was there for more than 20 years, including a tenure as the paper's religion editor.

The scholarship funds are administered through a partnership between NLGJA and The Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, a donor-advised fund of the Philadelphia Foundation that works to advance philanthropy through endowment building, fundraising, community outreach and education within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.