Past the statement of support, into the part that changes something.
Training, facilitation and organizational consulting for municipalities, school districts, businesses and nonprofits across the Western Slope. Built on what this valley's queer community actually reports, not on national research.
Three kinds of work
Training
Sessions for staff, boards and frontline teams on LGBTQ+ inclusion, delivered on site, for people who have to keep working together on Monday.
- LGBTQ+ inclusion foundations
- Supporting trans students and staff
- Messaging and communication
- Half day or full day
Coalition facilitation
Structure, accountability and follow-through for groups that have the will to act and no mechanism to do it.
- Coalition design and launch
- Working group structure
- Facilitation and coordination
- Annual assessment
Organizational consulting
Policy and practice review. The documents and habits that decide what actually happens to people.
- Policy review and redrafting
- Practice and process audit
- Implementation support
- Board and leadership advising
Both sides of the same wall
The institutions here were not designed for the people we serve, and both halves of QRS exist because of that one fact. On this side, we help schools, towns, businesses and agencies understand a community they already serve without seeing. On the other side, we help that community get through those same institutions.
The other half of QRS runs GSA programming in ten schools between Aspen and Parachute. That is not a side project. It is where the information comes from.
So when we tell a district what trans students in its buildings are experiencing, it is because we were in one of those rooms recently. When we tell a town what its queer residents need, it is because they told us directly and they were not being surveyed.
Snowmass Inclusion Coalition
The coalition had a strong foundation of dialogue and shared commitment, and no structure for turning that into anything. The work was to move it from conversation to action without losing the collaborative approach that made it work in the first place.
The framework: two full coalition gatherings a year for goal-setting and progress, three action-oriented working groups of three to five members each with their own deliverables and timelines, and monthly coordination between meetings so momentum survives the gaps.
Success was defined as progress over perfection. Working groups actively engaged with documented progress, not necessarily completion. It was understood from the outset that not every project would succeed as envisioned, and that meaningful attempts and course corrections are indicators of a healthy coalition rather than failures of one.
Eight years in this valley
Coalition and campaign work includes the Coalition to Support LGBTQ+ Youth in the Roaring Fork Valley, the Garfield RE-2 social studies curriculum advocacy, and organizing around the Garfield County Library Board. Some of it was won. Some of it was not. Both are why the work is structured the way it is.
Anyone who employs, teaches, houses or serves people here
Rates are banded by what an organization has
A municipality and a five-person nonprofit do not have the same budget. Charging them the same rate means only one of them ever gets the training, and it is never the one that needs it most.
So rates are banded by what an organization actually has, and the bands are published rather than negotiated in private. Organizations self-select and we confirm it in conversation. Nothing here is free. Every engagement covers its costs. Reduced rates are funded by the higher bands, which is a different thing from a favor.
The published band table is being finalized. Ask in your first email and we will tell you where you land and what it costs, before you commit to anything.
Tell us what you are trying to do.
Not a sales call. A conversation about what the problem actually is, whether this is the right kind of help, and what it would cost.
Start a conversation