Engage every LGBTQIA+ and Ally person in Greater Austin, across differences in age, race, gender, class, orientation, etc.
Connect each LGBTQIA+ community member with resources they can use to improve their wellbeing.
Support our partner LGBTQIA+ organizations and businesses so they can grow to meet our diverse community’s needs.
Build Strong Community Connections
Improve LGBTQIA+ Physical and Mental Health
Advocate for Safe, Healthy Places to Live
Increase Capacity with Lifelong Learning
Guarantee Economic Opportunity
Inspire a Positive Outlook
The Census will clarify our numbers and geographic dispersal, and the Survey will provide data about how each of us is doing in life.
RELATES TO GOAL #1: Engage every LGBTQIA+ and Ally resident
WHAT: Beginning in 2018, QWELL and its partners will conduct research to measure the size and wellbeing of Greater Austin’s LGBTQIA+ and Ally population. Both out and privately LGBTQIA+ people will be able to participate anonymously.
WHY: QWELL and our partners will ground our work in empirical data, for example, the types of barriers to wellbeing experienced by LGBTQIA+ Central Texans. Evidence of the size of this population and the magnitude of its wellbeing needs will help QWELL’s partner organizations more effectively raise funds to meet those needs. QWELL will also use this data to develop digital tools that allow for customized referrals based on each participant’s needs.
Everyone should be able to easily find safe wellbeing resources wherever they live in the Austin area.
WHAT: All LGBTQ-affirming wellbeing resources should register with QWELL to be eligible to accept QWELL referrals. Service providers may be compensated for each referral by QWELL, that member’s health insurance, or through a tax deduction.
WHY: QWELL needs to certify that each wellbeing service provider to which we refer our LGBTQIA+ members will be a safe, welcoming environment for all orientations and gender expressions.
WHO: See the FAQ below for examples of wellbeing service providers in each wellbeing category.
The best way to make sure no one falls through the cracks is to make LGBTQA community the rule instead of the exception.
RELATES TO GOAL #1: Engage every LGBTQIA+ and Ally resident
WHY: Loneliness is perhaps the most pervasive and deadly form of preventable suffering in the LGBTQIA+ community. Loneliness is a greater health risk than obesity, smoking, lack of exercise, or poor nutrition. In fact, studies show that social isolation increases risk of death by 30%. Loneliness can also lead to mental health conditions and dangerous coping mechanisms.
WHAT: QWELL is developing a decentralized network of “life support” groups so every LGBTQIA+ person has access to a diverse, positive-focused “life support” team in their neighborhood. Participants will have both “soft” incentives – community connections and positive feelings for helping others – and “hard” incentives” – access to free wellbeing resources.
LGBTQA support team volunteers will receive access to wellbeing services they can use to improve their quality of life.
RELATES TO GOAL #2: Connect community members with resources they can use to improve their wellbeing.
WHY: Anecdotal evidence suggests that the three most significant barriers preventing LGBTQIA+ Austinites from accessing wellbeing services are: affordability; ignorance of options; and fear of discrimination or harassment.
WHAT: QWELL plans to remove those barriers by providing referrals to certified LGBTQIA-safe providers – referrals customized for each community member’s goals – at no/low cost to the member.
HOW: We will build a digital tool to manage these customized referrals. Working with our partners, referrals may also be made by phone or in-person at an “Austin Outpost” LGBTQIA+ community center.
Strong partners help make a healthy community. QWELL is dedicated to expanding our partners’ work, not duplicating it.
WHY: Austin has a strong ecosystem of great LGBTQIA+ organizations, each working to improve an aspect of LGBTQIA+ wellbeing, as well as LGBTQIA+ and Ally businesses eager to help.
WHAT: QWELL will help our partner organizations and businesses expand their work by conducting an ongoing needs assessment, referring clients to them for services, and providing funding to help them grow. In addition, the for-profit arm of our hybrid model will focus on local LGBTQIA+ businesses.
Revenue streams from digital tools and a mixed-use development will help QWELL support our community members and partners.
WHY: Austin’s LGBTQIA+ residents need convenient access to wellbeing support and referral services without fighting Austin traffic. In addition, although the price of some wellbeing services will be covered by medical insurance, many of our partner organizations and businesses will need to be compensated for providing wellbeing services for LGBTQIA+ community members. That means QWELL needs to create a revenue stream that reliably delivers millions of dollars for these programs.
WHAT: The Spanish word for “heart” is corazón, and QWELL’s proposed “Austin Outpost” LGBTQ+ community centers will provide a heart for the LGBTQIA+ community in each of Austin’s 10 City Council Districts. Eventually, we plan to build a mixed-use development around each Outpost, with a unique mix of iconic local businesses, affordable housing, and office space. These CORA developments will sustain and extend Austin’s special identity as Texas’ greatest city to live, work, and play. Revenue from the districts will help fund QWELL programs. <b><a href=”https://qwellaustin.org/outpost”>LEARN MORE</a></b>
More places for young people to connect
Mori
Reflect a greater understanding of intersectionality
Jerome
More support and care for homeless LGBTQ youth
Sarah
Affordable LGBTQ+ Coworking Space
Ayesha
LGBTQ young adults organizing to assist LGBTQ senior populations
Britt
Welcome people of the global majority
Fatima
A community where elder wisdom is preserved and shared
Toby
More queer politicians
Chris
Active LGBTQ voters
Hunter
Full employment (esp. trans)
Tilly
Great public transit
Philip
Making sure queer kids get sex ed
Jeremy
Ending racism and misogyny in the LGBT community
Amber
Rainbow flags all over the city
Alex
We fully embrace our radical history
Rudy
No new HIV infections
Mark
Zero LGBT suicides
Joanna
Families that treasure their queer youth
Anna
Harmonious cooperation between our organizations
Michael
More long-term relationships
Jeff
OUTLOOK
How LGBTQIA+ people feel about their lives, and their individual experience of the community, influences their optimism about the world around them.
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH
Physical and mental health are the cornerstone of good quality of life. When LGBTQIA+ individuals, families, and neighborhoods are healthy, our people flourish.
RELATIONSHIPS AND COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
LGBTQIA+ people’s bonds with family, partners, friends, and people around us are a huge part of what makes us feel good or bad about life. Human beings thrive in a diverse, intergenerational, positive social structure.
LIVED ENVIRONMENT
The place around you matters. Your physical environment, natural or human-made, impacts your wellbeing. Austinites deserve healthy, affordable, safe places to live as openly LGBTQIA+ people of any age.
LEARNING
Skills training and lifelong learning, in and out of the classroom, promote mental development, personal growth, and challenging experiences.
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
Austin’s vibrant economy should include LGBTQIA-welcoming job training, employment, and chances for advancement, to create an environment where all LGBTQIA+ people can afford to make ends meet and may achieve all they hope to accomplish.
FROM WHERE DOES THIS DEFINITION OF WELLBEING COME?
QWELL is working with Santa Monica’s “Wellbeing Index,” a tool for measuring municipal wellbeing developed through a $1M grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Here are five examples of service providers for each of the various aspects of wellbeing. This is not a comprehensive list. Please visit CityPride.org to register as an LGBTQIA-safe business, organization, or group.
PHYSICAL HEALTH
MENTAL HEALTH
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
LIVING ENVIRONMENT
LEARNING
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
Yes! QWELL is a project of Austin Community Foundation. Just click here to donate.
QWELL Project Manager Clayton Gibson communicates regularly with City Council staff and the LGBTQ Quality of Life Advisory Commission. We hope the City will be a vital QWELL partner.
We will begin offering some support teams in 2020, and expanding the availability of these across the Austin area over time. Contact QWELL if you’d like to help develop the small group model or be trained as a group leader.
We believe that community is action-based, not identity-based. That means, if you want the benefits of being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, you have to show up for others, for example, by participating in a support team or volunteering for one of our partner organizations.
Our allies are important to the LGBTQIA+ community, and QWELL values and honors their support. Hundreds of thousands of LGBTQIA+ people live in greater Austin, and each of them has multiple allies. We need their help to improve LGBTQIA+ wellbeing, too.