Building Capacity, Building Power Cohort 

Are you a rural Oregon-based LGBTQIA2S+ community organizer, advocate, or leader with at least 2 years of community engagement experience? Are you tired? Would you like to be paid to commiserate with other LGBTQIA2S+ leaders struggling with burnout and envision ways to share resources and build collective power? 

If so, The Marie Equi Center and Pride Northwest, Inc. invite you to apply for our Building Capacity, Building Power Cohort. 

The Details:

Compensation: 

Cohort Members will be paid $1,000 a month from April 2026 - December 2027

Time Commitment: 

Cohort Members will not be required to track hours, but we will expect ~8 hours a week of their time or ~32 hours a month for the duration of the Cohort cycle. (Apr 26 - Dec 27).

Expectations:

  • Attending regular meetings with Cohort, frequency/dates/times to be determined 

  • Hosting at least 3 community engagement events in Cohort Member’s local community during the cycle 

Apply Now!

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Application Deadline: 

March, 16th 2026 5pm PST

Note: 

Cohort members will have independent contractor status, and we will need a W9 with one’s legal name. That information will be kept securely and used only for required purposes.

Eligibility:

Organizing, advocacy, and/or leadership experience

  • To be most competitive for this Cohort, we are looking for at least two years of community engagement experience. Examples of experience: mutual aid, grassroots organizing, nonprofit, etc.

Location

  • We are prioritizing rural, remote, and tribal organizers, and welcome applicants from anywhere outside Portland

  • To be most competitive for this Cohort, we are looking for folks that have lived and/or worked in their locality for at least two years. This does not necessarily mean consecutively, for example you may have grown up in an area, moved away for a time, and moved back.

Lived experience is highly valued. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, Two-Spirit, neurodivergent, and/or disabled folks strongly encouraged to apply.

About the Collaborative 

History

Since 2021, The Marie Equi Center and Pride Northwest, Inc. have been promoting rural-urban LGBTQIA2S+ solidarity statewide, building relationships with and offering capacity-building support to LGBTQIA2S+ Community Based Organization (CBO) leaders and members in 94% of Oregon's counties. In 2023, we hosted an innovative statewide community-based data justice project, a LGBTQIA2S+ CBO Needs Assessment to map resources, paint a picture of organizational strengths and needs, and understand local data priorities. With a response rate of 68%, we heard from 45 CBOs representing 97% of Oregon’s counties.

Vision

Our collaborative envisions a resilient and interconnected ecosystem of LGBTQIA2S+ Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in Oregon where we are able to strategize, learn, share resources, dismantle oppressive systems, and build power together. Through our work, we will see a strong, resourced, and unified LGBTQIA2S+ CBO ecosystem where we are able to affect change and uplift our communities through the power of coordination, connection, and community.

Vashti's headshot. Vashti stands smiling in front of a light blue background. Vashti is wearing a black zip up hoodie. Their hair is chin length , purple, and curly and their skin is a milk chocolate brown.

Your Facilitators

Vashti Boyce, MBA, MA, QMHP-C (they/she) is a Portland, Oregon based consultant providing subject matter expertise in social/community research, leadership development, and behavioural healthcare. They are a fat, Black, queer, femme, first-generation American. Driven by their lived experience of intersectional points of marginalisation, Vashti melds their research and behavioural health background to drive positive impacts in their various communities. In addition to their academic experience, they are a working performance artist, dance instructor, and producer. 

Anna's headshot. They are a white, straight-sized transmasculine person with wavy hair around chin-length. They are smiling at the camera, wearing a dark blue and green striped sweater, and standing against a dark wood background

Anna Silberman (they/them) is the Outreach and Capacity-Building Manager at The Marie Equi Center. They are a white, disabled, transmasculine anti-Zionist Jew and community organizer. Anna is passionate about suicide prevention, LGBTQIA2S+ rural-urban solidarity, and expanding access to culturally-specific mental healthcare for sex workers of color. In their free time, Anna watches too many horror movies and organizes with Haymarket Pole Collective, a grassroots organization that fights for safer and more equitable home- and workspaces for sex workers of color.

Vashti and Anna have been working together since 2021 and bring experience co-facilitating a Community Guidance Council during an earlier phase of this ongoing project.

Rural-Urban Solidarity

As two Portland-based organizations hosting a statewide project, we want to express our unwavering commitment to rural-urban solidarity, following the leadership of rural-based organizers, and funneling resources into the hands of our rural-based counterparts. We have a strong track record dating back to 2021 working respectfully and reliably with rural- and remote-based communities.

In the words of a rural-based community member- “It feels like y’all are really thinking about this in a holistic way and being as inclusive of all different parts of our state, from what I've heard and seen and understood it seems comprehensive and moving slow!! Which is a real big green flag when something is taking forever it means its really considering community voice and being responsive in that way. [I] love when shit like this takes a long time, [it] ends up being reflected”.

If you have any questions, please email Anna Silberman (they/them) at anna@marieequi.center.