2024 Volunteer Projects!
Volunteers are the secret sauce in any advocacy movement. They bring the energy, fresh ideas, and hands-on help that make change possible. At OPEN, volunteers are an crucial part of our team, playing an essential role in advancing our mission. So, let's roll up our sleeves and make some impact together through these 2024 volunteer initiatives!
Social Media Working Group
Introduction: OPEN is recruiting a volunteer team to help create for OPEN’s social media feeds in order to promote visibility and education around non-monogamy and to engage members of the non-monogamous community in our advocacy work and other programs. The expected commitment is approximately 1-2 hours per week (depending on your interest and availability).
Objectives:
Research, write, and design social media content for OPEN’s Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Twitter (X) feeds, posting approximately 3x per week.
Manage OPEN’s social media content calendar in order to track and create content related to key messaging/movement moments (days of visibility, holidays, etc.).
Leverage post metrics and community response to help develop and refine OPEN’s messaging and social media strategies.
Target Audiences:
Existing members of the non-monogamous community, with an emphasis on community leaders, content creators, and advocates.
Members of the general public who may not be familiar with or may hold misconceptions around non-monogamy.
Key Roles:
Project manager (1-2): Oversee content planning and team coordination.
Content creator (2-3): Conduct research, develop copy, and manage posting to social media feeds.
Designer (1-2): Convert draft posts into visually-engaging content.
Social media strategist (1-2): Provide strategic support and guidance across the team; review social metrics to help refine strategy.
Time Commitment: The meeting schedule and workflow will ultimately be determined by the group members. However, an expected commitment is 1-2 hours per week (biweekly 30-minute meeting, plus additional asynchronous collaborative work). We are looking for people who are able to make a 6-month commitment to this project.
Resources and support: This working group will receive ongoing support from OPEN staff. Additionally, the following resources are available:
Access to OPEN's brand kit and graphic assets.
Use of OPEN’s Canva Pro account for design needs.
Messaging resources including fact sheets, movement talking points, and messaging, communications, and social media strategy document.
Volunteer benefits:
Contribute to a meaningful cause by advancing visibility, acceptance, and movement-building for the non-monogamy community.
Develop skills around social media strategy and content creation.
Expand your network and knowledge around the topics of non-monogamy and grassroot advocacy
How to join: Please email <info@open-love.org>. Indicate the role you are interested in and mention any relevant experience.
Dictionary Project
Objective: Advance visibility and normalization of non-monogamy by lobbying for the addition of non-monogamy related words (“metamour,” “compersion,” and possibly others) to the Miriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries.
Project overview: Dictionary editors look for widespread, sustained, and meaningful use of a word. The word should appear in various sources (including academic papers, news media, etc.) over a significant period. The wider a range of sources over a longer period of time, the better!
The OED provides an online form for submission of a new word. Miriam-Webster does not provide a submission template, but does accept submissions via their contact form.
Key roles:
Project manager (1-2): Project oversight and team coordination
Researcher (3-4): Research evidence of word usage
Submission preparer (2): Compile evidence into a submission to MWD and OED.
Time commitment: The time commitment for this project will vary based on the role and number of project participants. However, a reasonable estimate is 15-40 hours over a 3-6 month project timeline.
How to volunteer: Please email <info@open-love.org>. Indicate the role you are interested in and mention any relevant experience.
Non-monogamy Media Directory
Challenge: Every day, more and more people are beginning to explore non-monogamy. But as with any new practice or skill, there’s a learning curve. Luckily, there is no shortage of books, podcasts, blogs, and social media content creators putting out a huge volume of education and information about all aspects of non-monogamy. However, this creates its own challenge: how to separate the signal from the noise and find the best and most relevant creators and content.
Objective: Create a directory of non-monogamy content and creators (including books, podcasts, content creators, etc.) with the following features:
Content listings with the following fields: Title, Link or links (website, social media links, etc.), Content type (book, podcast, etc.), Author / creator / host name(s), Topics / tags (polyamory, swinging, kink, etc.) Brief description (i.e. creator bio, book blurb, etc.).
User submission of new content, with an admin approval layer.
Filtering by content type and/or topic tags.
Reddit-style user voting to help the most popular/useful content rise to the top
Ideally embeddable into OPEN’s Squarespace website
Volunteer roles:
Project Manager (1): Project oversight and team coordination
Developer (1-2): Development of the technical infrastructure
Researcher (2-3): Content research and initial database population
Time Commitment: Time commitment for this project will vary based on the role and number of project participants. A rough estimate is 20-40 hours over a 3 month project timeline.
How to volunteer: Please email <info@open-love.org>. Indicate the role you are interested in and mention any relevant experience.
