Trans Rescue is an amazing place to volunteer.
You will be helping to save the lives of individual trans and queer people. Not some vague “helping save lives”, but saying “I made sure that Alice had food and housing during the process” or “I raised 2000 € last month. As a result Bob is now free.”
We are a volunteer organization, and while we hope to keep this current, we suggest checking the publish date if you are wondering if it is still relevant.
We know people have lives. We publish the number of hours a week we expect the opportunity to need, and also how many hours it will take to onboard someone in that role, so you can find a better fit for time you have now and time you have ongoing.
If you are interested in any of these, contact volunteer@transrescue.org
We start all volunteers with onboarding and orientation, which takes about an hour, often followed by an initial training, often another hour, and coaching and support in the immediate period after.
Current volunteer opportunities
CONC (Countries of New Concerns) team – Monitor
CONC (Countries of New Concerns) team – Team Member
Inbound Communications Team – Messenger Client Manager
Be the first point of contact for clients contacting us on messenger. Talk them through to an intake interview.
Training: 4 hours
Time Commitment: 5 hours a week, mostly in small bits, as our presence on our messenger clients
Requirements: Comfortable with being semi ‘always on’. Good with boundaries. Emotionally equipped to deal with folks who are desperate. Street savvy. Willing to have a variety of messenger clients installed on phone and/or laptop.
Fun: Get to meet a lot of trans people from all over.
Mental Health Team – Therapist or Case Worker
Provide psychological support to people in truly amazing circumstances.
Training: 4 hours (requires professional skills)
Time Commitment: Variable. Therapists have given us weekly therapy slots as they had them available.
Requirements: Professional training in clinical psychology, psychiatry, or social work. If licensed, licensed outside the USA.
Fun: Interested in how humans stay human at the boundaries of human experience? We meet people in extreme situations daily.
Operations – Intake Worker
Help gather information from clients coming in, assess their condition, and provide immediate emotional support.
Training: 4 hours orientation, plus working with an experienced interviewer
Time Commitment: Variable. We do 2-3 interviews a week, but can split these among multiple people. Intake requires 1 hour to 90 minutes. They are mostly on European time.
Requirements: Common sense, not easily scammed, ability to read people even when they’re in desperate circumstances. Ability to maintain boundaries. Training in a social work, psychology, or related field is useful. Familiarity with Arab culture is useful but not necessary. Ability to take organized notes.
Fun: You’ll be the first person a desperate trans person seeking help talks to. You get to meet lots of amazing trans people from all over the world. If you are interested in psychology, you get to work with people in circumstances most people will never be in. You get to say “we will help you” to trans people who believe they are going to die.
Social Media Team – Team Member
As a team member you will help run our social media presence, getting our message out, educating, and inspiring trans people. This is not just fundraising, but also an important part of how we fulfill our educational mission.
Training: 4-8 hours – long term commitment is valuable, so we have a consistent voice, and because much of it is “on the job”
Time Commitment: 15-30 minutes per day, 4-7 days per week
Requirements: Experience with the trans community. High level of social skills. Articulate. Creative. Experience with social media. Experience with the platform you are assigned is a nice to have.
Fun: Be the voice of Trans Rescue. Do some actual good with your doomscrolling time. Engage with trans folks. Motivate trans folks to move themselves to safety.
Social Media Team – Graphic Arts, Motion Arts
Can you use your communication skills to motivate trans people? Making the decision to leave your home can be very difficult. We need to support people making thoughtful decisions about whether to leave their home country and encourage and support them in doing so.
We can’t post pictures of our extraction work. You can fill that gap, helping the public understand and support our mission.
Training: Orientation to our social media group
Time Commitment: Variable. We always have projects coming up. If you’re waiting for the next paid gig and have time, great, if not, great.
Requirements: You can turn out professional looking work for web content. We’re pretty flexible about the form that takes. If you’re a 3D artist, cartoon videos illustrating our mission would be great. If you’re a film maker, there is always video work in most roles. Currently we are doing lots of puppet videos.
Fun: Depict fellow trans people. Experience a lot of freedom in your creative work. Motivating trans people to leave before the jaws close will save lives. Making puppet videos is just ridiculously fun.
Operations – Bursar
As a bursar you will help get funds where they are needed. We work all over the world, and struggle to move money to all 192 countries, and then some.
Training: gradual introduction to role, taking over more and more of the task until you’re independent.
Time Commitment: Variable. We have several people on the team. Together they spend 10-20 hours a week. At one end this is a perfect position for someone who has lots of free time and perhaps limitations on what they can do. At the other, it would be useful to have someone who can do 2 hours once a week.
Requirements: Scrupulous with details – you will be handling money. Clever and resourceful. Perfect job for somebody who is always looking for a great coupon deal and who looks at 14 websites to compare before buying a vacuum cleaner. Likes puzzles – thinks finding a way to get 50 EUR to a young trans person on the run in Iraq is an interesting challenge.
Fun: Great thing to do if you are imaginative and enjoy the internet. Directly help our passengers, get to know them.
Operations – Reception Committee
Do you live in a place that’s not ridiculously dangerous to be trans in, and that isn’t insanely difficult to get to? Help trans people from places that ARE ridiculously dangerous get settled in your community. Help form a reception community in your community.
Training: Ongoing, lots of support from us
Time Commitment: Varies. Initially not so much. More when passengers start showing up.
Requirements: You live in a place trans folk might want to go, and your country isn’t crazy difficult to migrate to. You are willing to help trans folks who are lost in a new culture and emotionally recovering. A bit of grit and resourcefulness. You can organize with others. You’re comfortable talking with the local government about housing options and with other trans people about helping you out. You’re not a queen bee.
Fun: You suddenly have a bunch of trans people in your life who are appreciative of your help. You become part of a community.
Operations – Secret Agent
Do you live in a place that is dangerous to be trans in? Are you willing to help trans people escape? Work closely with our operations team to help trans people leave.
Training: Education in basic tradecraft. Then ongoing training on the job. We offer very thorough support for any action you take on the ground.
Time Commitment: Minimal. You may do nothing for months, then do a few hours.
Requirements: Willing to be at risk. Ability to keep your mouth shut. Extremely high common sense and street savvy. Live in a dangerous country. Live on your own or independently, so if you go run an errand for 8 hours there aren’t many questions.
Fun: Sounds like it until you do it. Then it’s definitely not fun, but the feeling of satisfaction will last a lifetime.
Operations – Translator
We have ongoing needs for occasional help from translators fluent in any dialect of Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Dari, Urdu, and almost any other language. We could use assistance with any region’s Arabic, from Syria/Gulf to Egypt to North Africa. We also could use speakers of Armenian, Georgian, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Training: minimal
Time Commitment: 2-3 hours a week for Arabic, very occasional for other languages
Requirements: Need to be comfortable talking with fellows from your own country – we recognize that many folks will be in some immigration or asylum process and have their own confidentiality issues. Often you can use an alias.
Fun: Help others from your home country escape. If you have fled oppression yourself, this is one of the most effective things you can do to fight back against the conditions that made you flee.
Executive – Fundraising Manager
We live with a simple, deadly equation. Every 2500 Euros we raise means one more life saved. If you have skills in nonprofit fundraising, and can devote significant time to the role, you can play a central role in saving lives.
Take ownership of our overall fundraising operations. Ensure each of our fundraising methods is running smoothly. Plan and execute fundraising campaigns.
Training: Orientation towards Trans Rescue. You need to bring fundraising experience to the table.
Time Commitment: 5-15 hours per week
Requirements: Experience in a fundraising or nonprofit administration role
Fun: You get organizational support and many staff to build an amazing fundraising team. You get to say “I can rest easy – I have done my part for humanity”. If you are a people person, if you think working with a music producer to do a charity concert or building up social media presence are interesting, this is the role for you.
Grant Writer
We live with a simple, deadly equation. Every 2500 Euros we raise means one more life saved. If you have skills in nonprofit grant writing, you can play a central role in saving lives.
Grants power many of our operations. We depend on them and you’d be a critical part of making that happen.
Training: On the job training as part of grants team.
Time Commitment: At least 5 hours a week, and as much as you want to give.
Requirements: You don’t need to be a professional grant writer. If you’ve got a liberal arts degree or background in social work or work in NGOs you can help. Grant writing is 60% research, 40% writing, and 100% grit.
Fun: Frequent wins, nice collaborative environment, creative work
Executive – Chief Operating Officer
We are not here because of the large salaries (we are nearly all volunteers). We started because we believed this work needed doing. We are now large enough that we need actual administrators. As our director says, “my qualification for this job is a physics degree”.
The environment can be challenging, and dramatically different than a for profit.
Training: Intro to the organization, some transitional role to find your feet, close collaboration with our director.
Time Commitment: high
Requirements: Previous work as a lion tamer, perhaps. If you believe in what we’re doing and have experience operating a rapidly expanding organization with a headcount of 50, we’d love to have you contribute your hard work and expertise.
General Fundraiser – Volunteer Role
What you’ll be doing:
You’ll be helping Trans Rescue build and grow its vital fundraising efforts across multiple areas. Your work might include:
- Cultivating major donors and securing large gifts
- Managing annual giving campaigns to encourage smaller, recurring donations
- Building corporate sponsorship relationships
- Leading digital and social media fundraising campaigns
- Organizing fundraising events
- Managing and growing our membership and donor relationships through email and personal outreach
You’ll have the opportunity to work across different areas depending on your strengths and interests, with real flexibility to shape your focus.
Training:
You’ll receive close support from our fundraising team lead, plus have access to an expert professional fundraiser who can mentor you, provide resources, and help you build your skills.
Time commitment:
Minimum of 5 hours per week.
Why this is fun:
You’ll be raising funds that directly save lives—giving people hope, freedom, and safety. Fundraising is the beating heart of any nonprofit, and through your work, you’ll be making a real, tangible difference to the future of Trans Rescue. Plus, you’ll have the chance to get creative, build relationships, and be part of a passionate, supportive team making real change in the world.
Relationship Manager
What you’ll be doing:
You’ll maintain and grow our membership base, implementing structured email programs and personal touches that keep our supporters engaged and feeling valued.
Training: You’ll be mentored by the fundraising lead and have access to professional advice to help you build effective donor journeys.
Time commitment: Minimum of 5 hours per week.
Fun: You’ll be the heart of our donor community—building real relationships with people who care deeply about our cause and helping turn their passion into lasting support.
Whatever excites you, let us know. Interested? Email volunteer@transrescue.org