Get Involved

You will oversee our supplies stored at our host church and be aware of usage as events occur. This includes our PFLAG publications, swag, banners, tables/chairs/canopies, etc. stored at our host church. As quantities run low or if items need replacement, you’ll work with the Board to place orders paid with chapter funds. You’ll suggest obsolete items to the Board that should be discarded and watch for new items to purchase. Workload: 1-2 hours/month (easily done while you’re at our monthly member or Board meetings).

You have a garage or other dry space for storing larger parade items. This includes the popular “Closets Are For Clothes, Not Our Kids” hand-pulled mini-float and signs carried by parade participants. These items collapse and can be stood upright in about 2 square yards of floor space. You will do light maintenance as needed (tightening screws, inflating tires) and may transport the items to events. If you have an engineering mind and access to modern materials, you may even want to re-engineer the float. Workload: 2 square yards of storage space, possible transportation to 1-2 parades each year.

For events that require registration, you will work with the Board to select an event you want to lead. These may include tabling at a Pride event in your home city or tabling at the invitation of sporting events and city dedications seeking community service group representation. The Board will pay all fees and provide 501c3 and insurance documents. You will coordinate with the Board to reserve our event supplies (June gets really busy!). You will receive official event communications and inform the Board and update volunteers. Workload: about 12 hours per event spread over 2 months (this includes your likely presence staffing some shifts at the event and supporting load-in/load-out as the lead).

As a tabling volunteer you will sign up at our SignupGenius site (as early as possible so we don’t stress about needing to cancel due to too few volunteers!). You will familiarize yourself with the PFLAG message and our tabling cheatsheet. You will share your own personal experience about the power of love and support and interact with members of the public such as tentative individuals, joyous family members, and public officials who thank you for your presence. Workload 3-4 hours per event or shift, and stories and smiles at the ready.

As a parade volunteer for an Eastside Parade (usually a July 4th parade) you will sign up at our SignupGenius site (as early as possible so we don’t stress about needing to cancel due to too few volunteers!). You will dress up colorfully and march in our parade contingents that usually include many groups to make a strong showing. You will choose among roles such as carrying a PFLAG or personally-created sign, interacting with parade-watchers, pulling our mini-float, handing out stickers and swag, and more. You may help with transportation, preparation, or pack-out. 3-6 hours depending on the parade and your role.

You will spend 30 minutes before and after each 3rd Thursday monthly meeting at our host church. You will get snacks and meeting/tabling supplies out of the downstairs storage, arrange chairs and the information table, and put everything away at the end of the meeting. You will greet newcomers and explore their needs, encourage them to sign up for our newsletter, and connect them with Board members for any immediate or follow-up contact. You may learn how to open, lock up, and work the alarm code.

You will view the 2 hour training video, review PFLAG written guidance, and apprentice alongside experienced meeting facilitators to gain facilitation skills. You will learn how to run a PFLAG support group as an empathetic listener and/or appropriately firm meeting leader as needed. We want to continue growing our monthly meeting attendance and to be able to split into focused breakout support groups (which requires facilitators). Workload: A few hours of training and 1 hour/month at our 3rd Thursday monthly meetings.

You enhance our 3rd Thursday monthly support meetings by helping us find educators, businesses, authors, local government officials, and others to speak. You will mainly scan past chapter meeting announcements (ours, PFLAG Seattle, etc.) to invite people who have already wanted to speak at past meetings. You will monitor local LGBTQ+ social media for other speakers (nearly any news story has someone who wants to speak to an audience). You will share confirmed speakers with our newsletter and social media coordinators to publicize. Workload: A variable amount of initial research time, and about 1 hour of emailed requests/reconfirmation exchanges per monthly speaker.

You will use our Mailchimp platform and assemble a newsletter sent to our sizable mailing list. You will stay in tune with government announcements, civic news, LGBTQ+ popular culture, and other local LGBTQ+ news for story ideas. If needed, you may post some of those stories on social media if our social media coordinator is on break. You may wish to learn about Mailchimp’s analytics and suggest ways to improve our success rate with newsletters. Workload: 2-4 hours/month.

You will join our board as an At-Large member to share your experience, ideas, and assist in the board’s decision-making discussions at our 2nd Thursday Board meetings. You will learn about PFLAG practices, budgeting decisions, and running a 501c3. Workload: 2-hour monthly Board meetings, with additional time on projects and helping with monthly member support meetings as you wish.

You will join our board as an in-training President/Chair, Treasurer, or Secretary working in partnership with the current board officer to gain familiarity with the role before choosing to take it on fully. You will review the Board member playbooks to understand the role. You may have some formal responsibilities such as being on the registration papers, PO Box, and bank account. You will gain valuable experience under the umbrella of a well-run, well-resourced national 501c3 that leverages lightweight processes (e.g. IRS filings are as simple as a postcard). Workload: While these seem like sizable roles, they can be done in a few hours each month.

PFLAG has a national Canva account with a library of pre-approved branded graphical elements and documents created by other chapters. You would become familiar with using Canva, find other chapters’ documents to reuse, and produce occasional new graphics for our chapter. Immediate tasks include designing a new business card with official branding, and finding/reproducing the official vinyl banner given to us by PFLAG National so we can print another one for when we have simultaneous events. Workload: 2 hours to get familiar with Canva and 1-2 hours for each project (only a couple each year).

You will learn how to use the PFLAG National WordPress platform and edit text on the existing website for infrequent changes. You will also update the online calendar with events such as major festivals, events where PFLAG Bellevue/Eastside is tabling, and partner events we want to elevate. Workload: variable a few hours a month.

Our chapter has a storied history and involvement in some of Washington’s early successes in LGBTQ+ legislation. You will go through Board files, sort through and scan a small amount of physical documents and photos, interview some of the original chapter founders, and consolidate chapter history into one place. You will be provided data sources and points of contact by the Board. Workload: 10-20 hours total spread over time in partnership with Eastside Pride.

You will spot opportunities to submit grant requests to major benefactors. You will dip into our collection of past grant applications, modify them for current grant applications, and work with board members to obtain needed history and information.

You will create a flyer containing PFLAG boilerplate language and our chapter contact information. The flyer languages will be guided by available area demographic reports, explain PFLAG and our services in English and several other languages, support cultural/linguistic diversity on the Eastside, and be welcoming to those who may not have LGBTQ+ support within their communities. Our Board has access to translation resources. Workload: a few hours for the initial English flyer with variable work depending on the number of languages.

You will devise a self-service system, perhaps using our Mailchimp platform or our Google business platform, to have individuals provide their information and skillsets for a database (e.g. willing to talk about their family or generational experience, specific identities, etc.). The system would ideally be automated to ask speakers to update their interest each year to minimize our maintenance work. We would use this database to respond to outside requests for speakers. This would be less work and more impactful if coordinated with other Washington chapters to pool our speakers. Workload: variable, depending on tool skills.