The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center

I love The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center because of the impact it has on our community. The DC Center offers so many Health, Human, and Social Services. Not to mention all the great Art and Culture Programming. I wholeheartedly recommend the DC Center!

I have been volunteering with The DC Center and/or their programs little over 4 years. I started by helping with the FUKits packing parties way back in the day, and then I found out about the variety of LGBTQ organizations and groups affiliated, or ran by The Center. I can honestly say that the DC Center is a haven to meet, speak, get involved, get informed, and be empowered. It is their commitment to the betterment of the LBGTQ community that keeps me coming back. By volunteering with DC Center I know that I'm directly helping the community, future generations, and myself.

The DC Center has done an amazing job of supporting LGBT interfaith collaboration. Center Faith is energizing and maintaining the annual DC Pride Interfaith Service (now in its 31st year!) and birthing new projects ... watch for our growth thanks to the DC Center!

I'm an asylee from Russia and I'm very thankful to DC COMMUNITY CENTER. They helped me to settle in DC, find an attorney to apply for asylum. The crew is very organized and they are always hospitable! They are very dedicated what they DO!
I love to come in DC CENTER to meet with people and visit new people.

The DC Center is a jewel at the heart of the DC LGBT community. I have volunteered for the Oscars Party and Fall Celebration. I prominently feature all Center events on the community calendar on Go Gay DC. The Center information is usually very accurate.

I love running a group at the DC Center once a month. They have always been welcoming and helpful and open to the unique needs of our group.

While working with the DC Center, shooting some promotional videos, I've gained first hand experience on all the wonderful programs they offer to the LGBT community. From Center Careers to the HIV Working Group to Center Aging to Center Youth to Center Arts, there is something for everyone at The DC Center!

The DC Center provides us a safe space to hold our Board meetings and handles our own non profit incoming mail and packages, as well as having a place where people can go to access the internet for job assistance and quality of life programs.

can't say enough good things about my experience at The DC Center. We have held several meetings at the DC Center and plan to hold many more. They have a great meeting space with that capacity to host groups large and small. Brant, the Facilities Manager, is always super helpful and responsive to all our requests and questions. They ensure that all groups hosting an event there have what they need. especially considering BMX is a nonprofit organization. Again, we plan to host further meetings/events at the DC Center because we've never gone wrong with them. What a great resource for The District of Columbia!

I volunteered at the DC Center to get involved with the community and to learn about all the resources available in the DC area. It is a remarkable experience. There is really an outlet for any passion or specific area that an individual would want to focus on. Initially, I didn't know what I wanted to do, specifically, as a volunteer, and as a result I was assigned a wonderful variety of tasks that kept my experience interesting and meant that, in part, I was looking forward just to finding out what needed to be done from day to day.

What meant a great deal to me was the level of responsibility given to and trust in volunteers. Because the DC Center employees so few paid personnel, volunteers are often asked to perform tasks that would be confined to staff in other, larger organizations giving a volunteer intern level experiences. I contacted members of DC Council, shook hands with the mayor, provided feedback from the larger community on various issues and researched resources on every issue imaginable from immigration and asylum to sexual assault to organized sport in the area. Because the DC Center is a resource center, a volunteer learns about all the resources available to the LGBT community --and the DC community as a whole-- and makes connections with representatives of various institutions and organizations.

The DC Center is a great place to find resources about and connect to DC's LGBT community. Come by and find out what might be out there for you!

The DC Center is an amazing place to connect with the local LGBT Community in DC. Whether you're just 'coming out' or you've been out for years, there are a wide variety of activities here you may be interested in. There are many monthly support & discussion groups, and many advocacy groups working to make the city a better place for LGBT people. The DC Center sponsors several arts and cultural programs including the DC Queer Theatre Festival and the Capturing Fire LGBT Poetry Slam.

Before taking this position as an unpaid intern, I was warned that the director was known for foisting his services on people, and that the DC Center (as it is colloquially called) was not as legitimate as other LGBT organizations in Washington, DC. As someone who was not from the area, I recommend you listen to locals--they often understand what is going on a lot more than you do. Though I enjoyed my work, the director made the workplace a toxic environment, one in which I often felt unsafe and threatened. But I stayed on because I had committed to putting together a few major events that could not have gotten finished without my help; however, the director continually berated and humiliated me publicly, as well as telling me that I could not handle doing it; I received little to no credit for doing so. There was a culture of interns getting assigned to tasks they did not have any idea how to do (such as my finding out there was a reception to be had tomorrow that had been planned before my internship started, and the director had forgotten about it, but I was admonished and given no help to organize it). Due to fear of the director's reaction, often interns would not ask for help unless it was absolutely necessary and risk being humiliated again in public. I often felt very unsafe working there. Though the Center provides a variety of programs, I would not recommend one intern there; volunteering for a few events would be a great way to meet people, but working for a prolonged time in that environment was truly the worst experience of my life. Though I enjoyed the company of other interns, and believed in the work I was doing, that was the end of the positive things.