Get involved

Volunteer

NWAAF centers our volunteers as the pulsing heart of our organization, and we are inspired every day by the incredible impact they make on the lives of our callers. Our callers are diverse in identity and circumstances; help us ensure they are met by someone who understands their experience and volunteer today! We're especially looking for folks from the Global Majority/BIPOC, Black, non-cis folks, youth, lived experience and more. Do you want to join us?

Perks of volunteering: Not only will you get to meaningfully impact callers who are looking for assistance at a critical moment of their lives, you'll be part of a vibrant community who share your values about abortion access. You'll go through extensive and thoughtful training that will prepare you for your role. We invest heavily to ensure our staff and volunteers feel a sense of community and appreciation, and we provide leadership pathways if you desire it.

Volunteering Opportunities

• Case Management: We run a helpline remotely that is entirely staffed by volunteers who take shifts throughout the year. Want to make a direct impact?
  • Funding Advocates determine financial need for abortion care, and send vouchers directly to clinics
  • Practical Support Coordinators assess the needs of callers who need travel help to their abortion, and make travel arrangements (flight, bus, Uber), may arrange grocery delivery, gas or grocery vouchers, etc.
  • Remote Emotional Support Doulas are (independently) trained, full-spectrum/abortion doulas who provide remote support to callers who desire it, by phone, email or text.
• Rides: Can you drive folks to or from their appointments? Most of the need for rides is during the day on weekdays.
  • If you are in Oregon or southern Washington and are interested in giving rides, consider applying to volunteer with Cascades Abortion Support Collective, our incredible partner that provides all Oregon rides.
• Leadership
  • Board of Directors -- We are implementing a new leadership structure this year and will be recruiting later in the year for visionary, active board members. Our board members currently are all also helpline case managers
  • Funding Lead, Practical Support Lead and Remote Doula Leads provide leadership and cohesion to the team during their shift, helping to answer questions, provide back up coverage for shifts, and more.
  • Training Leads work with the Volunteer and Training Coordinator to develop curriculum and execute training for onboarding, racial caucuses and more.
• Events and Projects occur throughout the year and may include social media assistance, end of year financial tasks, logistics planning for events, administrative support and data entry, and more!

Ready to volunteer or just a little curious? Click here to find out more!

Beyond Volunteering - Other Ways You Can Help

• Other Opportunities to Support and Uphold Reproductive Justice in the PNW:
  • Exhale Pro-Voice: Exhale operates a volunteer-staffed peer-support text line for folks to seek support around their abortion process. 
  • Surge Reproductive Justice: Surge is a Black-led organizing and advocacy org based in Seattle. 
  • Legal Voice: A Seattle-based org that advocates for women and reproductive justice issues. You don't need a legal background to volunteer with them. 
  • Planned Parenthood and Local Independent Clinics: So many avenues here! Some clinics utilize clinic escort volunteers. Some areas have robust Planned Parenthood Advocates groups that do more community organizing and fundraising. Some locations have education teams that volunteers can also engage with. Planned Parenthood clinics and the advocacy side operate separately, and we recommend looking into the opportunities on both sides in your area. 
  • Abortion Story-telling: If you've had an abortion and would like to share your story (this can be largely anonymous or not), please submit your story here or check out We Testify's programs around story-telling. It's an instrumental way to fight stigma. 

Questions? Email us at info@nwaafund.org

Outside the Northwest, but still interested? Find your local fund!

Fundraise

One of the most vital ways you can help people get access to the care and support they need is to ask 5 friends to chip in to provide financial support. This can help with the cost of a hotline caller’s health care or travel needs to get to their appointment. Encourage your friends to donate on our website, or email us at fundraising@nwaafund.org to discuss coordinating your personalized fundraiser!

Cash grants available for BIPOC volunteers

NWAAF is offering sliding scale cash grants for Black, Indigenous, & people of color doing volunteer work at abortion funds and practical support organizations in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and/or Washington. All grants will be offered on a sliding scale, so applicants request their desired grant amount in their application. We encourage grantees to ask for the amount that will make this work accessible to them and make them feel that their contributions are valued over the grant duration. We will not prioritize smaller requests.

Offering cash grants is one way that we can honor, uplift, and tangibly value our BIPOC community members and their labor in this movement, along with dismantling barriers to participation in this kind of volunteer work. We recognize how, historically, white volunteers have the privilege and resources to dedicate their time to unpaid labor for causes that matter to them. Often, making the faces of this movement work white, college educated, middle class cisgender women. While we can acknowledge the value of the love and labor put into this work by every abortion fund volunteer past and present, we seek to interrogate how we make this work accessible and welcoming to our non-white movement comrades who often don’t have the same access to time, resources, and social support to be involved in work that feels meaningful to them. We also recognize how in these spaces, BIPOC are often expected to take on more labor than their white counterparts, labor that can be more emotionally and logistically taxing.

By offering cash grants, we can increase the accessibility of this volunteer work, address the specific aforementioned dynamics and issues, and, ultimately, better serve our callers and foster a stronger, more values aligned community that better enacts our values, supports and uplifts BIPOC, and honors the labor being done.

When: Applications will stay open and will be evaluated on a year-round rolling basis

How to apply

To qualify for a grant through this program, applicants must:

• Identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or a Person of Color
• Be an existing or incoming volunteer with an abortion fund/practical support organization with a 501(c)(3) status in the pacific northwest
• Be located in the pacific northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, or Washington) at the time of application
• Have a good faith intention to be doing consistent volunteer work for the grant duration (1 year, unless otherwise specified).

If you meet the qualifications and are interested in applying, please complete the following form. Once you have submitted the form, someone on the grants management committee will follow up with you via email with next steps.

Resources

• How to Determine Your Requested Grant Amount
• Tax Guidance Document for BIPOC Volunteer Grants