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Volunteer

As abortion access has been threatened, we've been inundated with support from our community, including several thousand volunteer applications and inquiries. We are so grateful for this support, and it has put us in the lucky position of being fully staffed in many of our volunteer roles. We are always considering new ways to utilize volunteers and we know the work ahead will require many of us. Consider the opportunities below, and keep in mind that NWAAF and other reproductive justice organizations, may not be able to get back to you in a timely manner. Your patience and support mean the world to us.

Please note: NWAAF invests a few months into the vetting and training of each volunteer. Because of that investment, we ask that all volunteers make a good faith commitment to volunteer with us for at least two years.

Opportunities

  • Rides: Can you drive folks to or from their appointments? Most of the need for rides is during the day on weekdays.
  • Homestays: Could you host people travelling for abortion care a couple of times a year? We prioritize hosts with no-contact spaces, like a mother-in-law or other private space with its own entrance.
  • Case Management: We run a helpline remotely that is entirely staffed by volunteers. There are primary volunteer roles on the helpline: practical support coordinators, who work directly with callers to provide them with travel, cash assistance, childcare, meals, etc., and funding advocates, who talk with callers to assess their needs and then send funding vouchers directly to clinics. If you want to work on the helpline, you don't have to decide for sure which role you'd like to do until part way through the training process. The helpline is currently fully staffed, please understand that if you fill out the volunteer form indicating helpline interest, you are effectively signing up for a waitlist with an indefinite response time and we will follow up when we have openings.
    • We are still fielding fluent Spanish-speakers for helpline roles.
  • Emotional Support:  Through the helpline, we also offer emotional support to our callers. This role is specifically and exclusively staffed by trained abortion and full-spectrum doulas.
  • Leadership: We have approximately 15 volunteers in respective leadership roles who help with training volunteers, engaging with our callers and managing caller data, or overseeing/supporting the helpline volunteers on shift. If you have any skill sets well suited to any of those roles, please indicate that you're interested in leadership in your volunteer form and we will reach out when we next have an opening.
  • Fundraise for NWAAF:  Fundraising for NWAAF is one of the easiest ways to get involved, and it is truly what makes this work possible. Check out the fundraising tab on this page and sign up for our email list to year about opportunities as they come up.
  • Donate to NWAAF: If you are able, please consider setting up a monthly donation with NWAAF. This allows us to confidently plan and provide for our community long term. 
  • 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

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 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.

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