InReach App - The World’s First Tech Platform Matching LGBTQ+ People Facing Persecution or Discrimination with Safe, Verified Resources

Jamie Sgarro

Funding Area: Capacity building / Construcción de capacidad

Problem Statement: Despite the rise in harnessing technology to tackle pressing social issues, the LGBTQ+ movement has lacked a scalable, technologically advanced, holistic resource platform. The need has only increased with the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ+ laws taking effect across the United States and around the world. Too many local advocacy and community organizations have had to decide whether they have the capacity and/or the network to create and maintain their own resource lists. With proper funding and increased visibility, InReach is poised to fill this gap and produce systemic change for the diverse LGBTQ+ community. The Problem: Many service providers have suboptimal web presences. They are too busy serving the community to focus on things like SEO. As a result, some of the best providers will not come up high in the search results on large search engines. Providers also differ in their web presences — some have websites geared towards donors, while others only have social media, etc. How InReach Fits: Independent vetting process: All providers listed on InReach are independently verified by trained volunteers to be safe for LGBTQ+ people facing persecution or discrimination (and re-verified at least 1x every 6 months for safety). InReach makes it easy for users to assess and compare their options: InReach organizes all of these verified providers in one place; InReach also aggregates useful information on each provider's services in a consistent format via InReach profile pages.

Proposed Activities: InReach has built the world’s first tech platform matching LGBTQ+ people facing persecution or discrimination with safe, verified resources. The free InReach App is available on web (desktop and mobile), and native iOS and Android. InReach’s open-source technology (InReach App) instantly matches LGBTQ+ people in need with independently verified, safe housing, medical and mental health care, immigration and other legal help, meal assistance, education and employment, translation, community and spiritual support, and more critical services. InReach serves as a comprehensive digital one-stop-shop for the diverse, intersectional LGBTQ+ community: InReach lists verified services for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants, LGBTQ+ BIPOC communities, TGNC folks, LGBTQ+ youth and their caregivers, and more LGBTQ+ communities. To ensure accessibility, the InReach App is free for everyone, including lawyers, case managers, social workers, and other service providers and community organizations searching for affirming resource referrals for LGBTQ+ clients. In June 2023, we released an upgraded version of the free InReach App. Our redesign represents a significant step forward in our mission to ensure every LGBTQ+ person has free, on-demand access to the safe resources they need to thrive. (Learn more on our blog: https://inreach.org/introducing-the-redesigned-inreach-app). Our focus now turns to capacity building. With this grant, InReach will strengthen its capacity by: (1) creating and updating documentation to make it easier to onboard new contributors and maintainers to InReach’s open-source repository, and (2) creating and maintaining new training materials and documentation to make it easier for crowdsourced translators to contribute to our platform’s language accessibility. For translations, InReach will use crowdsourced translations (through a third-party server, Crowdin) to supplement/replace machine-generated translations to increase our translations accuracy, inclusivity and cultural competence. Target Project Timeline: November 2023: Project start date. Q4 2023-Q1 2024: InReach engineering team to create updated contribution guidelines and a documentation template for InReach’s open-source repository. InReach translation team to add new training materials and documentation to InReach’s Crowdin repository. InReach’s engineering team to add new languages to Crowdin for crowdsourced translators to contribute to and InReach’s proofreaders on contract to supplement/replace machine-generated translations. Q2-Q3 2024: Document new and updated features; Conduct ongoing freshness reviews to continue to improve documentation and implement best practices. InReach’s proofreaders on contract to continue to supplement/replace machine-generated translations to improve the platform’s language accessibility. December 2024: Project end date. This project will be carried out by InReach’s engineering and translation teams.

Openness: InReach has the expertise, engineering and vetting capacity to develop the most technologically advanced resource platform for the diverse LGBTQ+ community. For example, InReach’s new codebase (released in June 2023) uses some of the most popular frameworks/libraries, making it easier for developers to contribute to our open source repo. InReach is built for scale and uses open crowdsourced translations (via Crowdin) to increase language accessibility and inclusivity. Our custom technology is free, open source and community-centric. For example, we encourage other organizations to not only use the platform and claim their profile (if applicable) but also to help expand InReach in their community. Anyone can suggest resources via our public suggest resources form (all resource suggestions are subject to InReach’s vetting process for safety). We also encourage local community members and organizations to share existing resource lists (e.g., static webpages, excel files, google docs) to help build the platform. Additionally, as a tech nonprofit, InReach has the ability to integrate with other organizations who maintain databases (e.g., connecting other public search APIs to our data portal with credit: "Live data provided directly from x”).

Challenges: One challenge we anticipate is ensuring InReach’s open source documentation and training remains comprehensive and up-to-date moving forward. To mitigate this risk, we will build in regular recurring updates to our documentation and training materials in our organization’s processes. We will also actively solicit feedback from contributors and maintainers to continue to improve our open source documentation and training. We also anticipate facing challenges in ensuring our translations’ cultural competence, use of inclusive terminology, etc. across different languages. To mitigate this risk, we plan to hire contracted translators with relevant lived experience. For example, InReach has established a cost-sharing partnership with Refugee Translation Project to hire LGBTQ+ immigrants/asylees to provide proofreading services for InReach in Crowdin (including proofreading crowdsourced contributions). We also plan to reach out to other LGBTQ+ translation groups (such as Rainbow Translators) for collaboration.

Neglectedness: Since its founding, InReach has raised over $1.2M USD. (InReach was entirely volunteer-run until 2019.) Funding to-date has come from foundation grants, corporate grants, individual giving and the InReach Junior Board Program for LGBTQ+ and allied young professionals (includes a $1,000 annual membership dues requirement, corporate employee matching fund opportunities and organizing fundraisers benefiting InReach). Funds secured to-date include a $250k general operating support investment from one of the United States’ top philanthropists in late 2021. In late 2022, InReach received additional significant general operating support grants from The Upwork Foundation ($100k) and The Blackstone Charitable Foundation ($50k). For every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations only 28 cents specifically support LGBTQ+ issues and only 4 cents focuses on trans communities. With increased funding, InReach’s open source platform can ensure every LGBTQ+ person has free, on-demand access to the resources they need to survive and thrive.

Success: Our target metrics for this project include: Sample open-source metrics: Total number of developers contributing; Number of unique visitors using the free InReach App to access safe resources (e.g., weekly/monthly/annually). Sample crowdsourced translation metrics: Different non-English languages contributed; Total number of crowdsourced translators/reviewers/proofreaders contributing to InReach; Total number of translated words contributed by crowdsourced translators.

Total Budget: 25,000

Affiliations: InReach

LMIE Carveout: The free InReach App lists over 8,000 verified services distributed across North America, with new services being verified and added every day by trained volunteers. Communities served include low-income geographic areas. InReach also offers an international crisis resources page that appears whenever someone searches for resources outside of the U.S., Mexico or Canada (including in LMIEs). With increased capacity, we hope to launch InReach in new countries. To launch in a new country, all we will need is the initial resource data and the staff capacity to oversee crowdsourced contributions, a local Resource Team and on-the-ground partnerships. Our new open source code allows engineers from around the world, and of all experience levels, to contribute directly to advancing InReach.

Team Skills: In 2014 at the University of Pennsylvania, a gay asylum seeker and LGBTQ+ American combined their lived experiences struggling to access safe resources to co-found InReach. After growing up in a conservative environment, Jamie Sgarro, InReach Co-Founder & Executive Director, first came out as a lesbian at 21 and later as a transgender man at 26. Jamie then ended up using what he had built at InReach to access the affirming legal, medical and mental health services necessary to step into his identity as a trans man. Jamie has led InReach for 8+ years since co-founding the organization. For his work on InReach, Jamie was selected as a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow, 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 honoree in Law & Policy, and 2022 Data for Justice Prize Winner, World Justice Forum in The Hague. Our translation team is run by Abby Davies, Part-Time Resource Coordinator & Translation. Abby is a vocal advocate of immigration/asylum rights and brings 10 years of professional translation experience. InReach has a cost-sharing partnership with Refugee Translation Project to hire LGBTQ+ immigrants/asylees to provide proofreading for InReach in Crowdin (including proofreading crowdsourced contributions). Our engineering team is run by Joe Karow, Lead Engineer. Joe is a full stack software engineer and an active member of The Progressive Coders Network. He is passionate about open source software and LGBTQ+ rights. Diana, engineer on contract, brings 25+ years of experience in the field.

Submission Number: 68