Class of 2021
Political Science and Urban Studies
RECLAIM
RECLAIM works to increase access to mental health support so that queer and trans youth may reclaim their lives from oppression in all its forms. One of the many wonderful services they provide is therapy to 65+ youth each week, 80% of whom are trans or gender nonconforming. RECLAIM is a relatively young organization, but they’re growing very quickly and their capacity can’t always keep up with their group (i.e., they have many people who are eager to volunteer with them, but no infrastructure for volunteers). As a queer person who came out in high school, I know firsthand how important it is for organizations like RECLAIM to exist, so the focus of my project was to make some of their developmental aspects more sustainable.
While working at RECLAIM this summer, I created their current volunteer program from scratch and helped them reshape their social media practices for higher audience engagement. As a part of building the volunteer program, I created distinct volunteer positions, wrote the volunteer application, developed a system of volunteer profiles and organization with various software, devised recruitment strategies, and designed curriculum for volunteer orientations, among many other things. Once the volunteer program had been created, I also helped institute best practices for volunteer management.
The volunteer management experience I have from previous internships was very useful since I was developing a program from the ground up. I really enjoyed having the creative agency to combine my own new ideas with my previous knowledge of established volunteer program practices at other nonprofits. That process was very challenging and exciting and it allowed me to develop a program that efficiently fit into the organizational context and capacity of RECLAIM.
My fellowship at RECLAIM this summer taught me so much, both professionally and personally. I’m so grateful that I was able to do the work that I’m passionate about while also engaging with my own community in meaningful ways. As a nonbinary person, it’s very rare that I find a professional setting in which I feel comfortable enough to openly discuss any aspect of my gender identity, so it was a really healing experience to primarily work with trans folks. I truly valued my time at RECLAIM and I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to partner with them!