Volunteer with SQSH

We welcome queer St. Louisans who are passionate about queer liberation and movement work to join our supportive, empowering community. Our membership base centers the most marginalized members of our community and taps on your unique skills, perspectives, and lived experiences to strengthen SQSH’s mission and programs.

Our non-hierarchical culture creates opportunities to build trusting relationships between members, directly address conflict and harm, and take a transformative justice approach to repair and accountability.

Volunteers connect SQSH’s Staff with grassroots perspectives and hold SQSH’s leadership accountable to the St. Louis queer community.

We invite queer St. Louisans who align with our values of abolition, social justice, and Black liberation to join our volunteer base. Due to our focus on deepening relationships with Black queer communities, our applications are currently only open to Black queer St. Louisans.

July (they/them), Outreach Volunteer

Jump to

How to Apply

NOTE: Due to capacity limitations, we prioritize applications from high-commitment volunteers who are able to do the work reliably and communicate consistently. For the sustainability of our work, we request that volunteers commit to working with SQSH for at least 6 months in order to consider your application.

  • the number "1" in a spikey circular blue shape

    Learn about SQSH

    Review Our Team and our org chart to better understand how SQSH operates internally.

    If you’re not ready to volunteer but want to stay updated on opportunities, follow our Facebook and Instagram, or subscribe to our Newsletter!

  • the number "2" in a spikey circular teal shape

    Find your fit

    Review the Volunteer Requirements and identify Open Opportunities that you are most interested / equipped to volunteer for.

  • the number "3" in a spikey circular green shape

    Submit an application

    Apply through this form when you’re ready!

    We know that the app can be more intensive than typical volunteer forms, but we hope to get a sense of your values, identities, political alignment, and ability to commit to the cohort’s activities.

What to Expect After Applying

  • Our Staff will email you within three weeks of receiving your application to set up a 1-hour interview with you via Zoom.

    For some positions, we may ask you to provide a resume or share past work samples before your interview, to assess whether your current skills and experiences might be a good fit for our needs.

  • During our interview, we will ask you questions to get to know your values, lived experiences, and skills better.

    We welcome you to ask us questions too to learn more about SQSH and how you can best contribute to our community.

  • If we mutually find that your skills and experiences are a good fit for SQSH, within two weeks after your interview, we will send you an acceptance email to invite you into your new role in SQSH.

    If you choose to accept our offer, within two weeks after your acceptance, we will send you an onboarding email with instructions on how to get started in your volunteer role.

  • During your first Team Meeting, we will introduce you to your team! We will use subsequent every-5-week Team Meetings to discuss roles and strategies, update each other on progress made since the last meeting, and wrap up with action items going forward.

    In between Team Meetings, please check in with your Team(s) regularly to keep yourself accountable to the role and tasks you committed to. As a non-hierarchical collective, we need every member to communicate actively in order to build trusting relationships and move in alignment with each other!

Volunteer Requirements

Most volunteer positions are currently remote due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but we encourage Volunteers to attend in-person meetings and events when they can. Vaccination and COVID testing are encouraged; masking is required.

Due to our focus on deepening relationships with Black queer communities, our applications are currently only open to Black queer St. Louisans. Community members who have personal experiences with or strong understandings of multiple marginalized identities (especially Mad & mentally ill, disabled & chronically ill, and neuro-expansive Black folks) are especially encouraged to apply.

Stipends are available to volunteers on a case-by-case basis.

All SQSH members must:

  • Be committed to SQSH’s values, including abolition, Black liberation, healing justice, transformative justice, community care, and peer support

  • Be willing to self-reflect on their own areas and experiences of privilege and oppression

  • Be open to ongoing political learning, community feedback, and directly addressing conflict and repair

  • Adopt an anti-oppressive, pro-Black, justice-centered, and trauma-informed approach to the work

  • Be willing to communicate with team members and adapt to others’ working styles

  • Have a passion for empowering and uplifting the St. Louis queer/LGBTQIA+ community, while centering the most marginalized members of our community

  • Be available for every-5-week 1.5-hour Team Meetings (hybrid options available)

  • Fill out an application!

To maintain membership with SQSH, volunteers are asked to commit to these responsibilities:

  • Attending at least one every-5-week 1.5-hour team meeting

  • Checking and responding on Slack regularly at least once a week

  • Contributing asynchronously by taking on tasks within their team(s) in between team meetings (if possible)

 Volunteer Opportunities

Outreach Team

Implements SQSH’s community outreach and engagement strategies, with a focus on building trusting relationships with Black trans communities.

Outreach Volunteer

Outreach Volunteers attend and table at community events and actions to raise visibility about SQSH's work, support local efforts towards social justice and queer liberation, and build lasting relationships with community members. They serve as SQSH's eyes and ears so that we can stay in touch with grassroots input and community feedback. Strong conversational skills and deep, meaningful roots in the St. Louis queer/LGBTQIA+ community are preferred for this role.

Time Commitment: 2-4 hours per week.

SQSHBook Team

Runs and expands our community-owned resource database, the SQSHBook.

SQSHBook Data Cleanup Volunteer

SQSHBook Data Cleanup Volunteers work with the SQSHBook Coordinator to organize the SQSHBook resource database, fact-check resource information to keep the SQSHBook updated, clean up duplicative or outdated resource entries, and incorporate community feedback and input into the database.

Time Commitment: 2-4 hours per week.

Social Media & Newsletter Teams

Communicates SQSH’s messaging, announcements, updates, and events to our community and partners through our social media and newsletter platforms.

Social Media Volunteer

Social Media Volunteers craft social media posts for SQSH's Facebook and Instagram platforms. They amplify SQSH's social media presence through engagement, reposting, commenting, and DMs. We value an approach to social media that resists urgency culture, embraces nuance, prioritizes accessibility, and conveys our values.

Time Commitment: 3-5 hours per week.

Newsletter Volunteer

Newsletter Volunteers contribute to long-form editorial pieces in SQSH's monthly email newsletters to engage SQSH’s subscribers. They aim to create community engagement around SQSH's work, convey SQSH's mission and values, uplift SQSH's partners, and spark conversations about social justice issues (with a focus on Black liberation, trans resistance, disability justice, and immigration/language justice issues most relevant to St. Louis).

Time Commitment: 3-5 hours per week.

Design Team

Develops SQSH’s graphic design materials in alignment with SQSH’s branding guidelines and project needs.

Graphic Design Volunteer

Graphic Designer Volunteers create graphics for SQSH to raise awareness about our organization, mission, programs, and community news. We value a graphic design approach that centers representation of marginalized communities, accessibility, and engagement. Graphic design projects include social media graphics, flyers, resource/business cards, infographics, toolkits, zines, merch, and more.

Time Commitment: 3-5 hours per week.

Peer Counselor

Operates SQSH’s Peer Support Line service.

**Peer Counselor applications are currently closed, and will re-open in Spring 2025. Learn more about last year’s cohort here.

Intern / Practicum Student

Supports SQSH’s operations and programs while achieving personal/professional learning goals as part of an educational course/experience. Applications are currently closed as we focus on building staff capacity.

Intern/Practicum Student

Interns and practicum students are intimately involved in SQSH's day-to-day functioning, get valuable experience working with the St. Louis queer/LGBTQIA+ community, and learn more about the systems that impact queer St. Louisans' lives. You will be given agency to customize your own projects and provide input to improve SQSH as an organization. You will be paired with a task supervisor and a mentor/field instructor who will check in with you weekly/biweekly, facilitate reflection and growth, and answer questions about SQSH. For more information, please read about SQSH Internship/Practicum Learning Activities and view our Practicum Poster.

Please note that if you are hoping to do direct client work by taking Helpline calls, you would need to apply and undergo the training for Helpline Volunteers (see above).

Applications for Interns and Practicum Students are currently closed. If you would like to receive updates for when applications open, you can follow our Facebook and Instagram, or join our Newsletter.