Rainbow FamiliesTM works to build a safe, just, and affirming world for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents and their children.
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About Us
Who We Are
Rainbow Families serves families in the upper Midwest, and we are one of the strongest LGBT family organizations in the country. Our community is diverse and includes gay men, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender adults, our children, extended family members, and our allies.
Our families are created in many different ways. Our children come from marriages, partnerships, and single parenting; some come to us through adoption, foster care, and guardianship, and others by birth. Our children are of all ages. We live in cities, rural communities, and suburbs. Our community reflects the differences in our society – sexual/gender orientations, racial, ethnic, economic, educational, political, and religious. Who we serve is always expanding to include the diversity of our community.
For a look at the broader LGBT community, visit the Human Rights Campaign 2000 census analysis.
What We Do
Founded in June 1997, Rainbow Families is one of the largest regional lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parent organizations in the country. From our Minneapolis home, we provide services to more than 2,000 families throughout the Upper Midwest. Our growth has been steady, built through the dedication of volunteers, strong leadership, and community support. Rainbow Families has been sustained for many years by the energy of volunteer parents. In 2003, we have a paying membership of more than 1,000 members, a hard-working staff, and multiple programs and activities, including:
Annual conference
Newsletter
Community events and celebrations
Resources and referral services
Media relations
Speakers' bureau and public education
Parent education
Children's choir
School advocacy
Legal and legislative monitoring
Annual Rainbow Families Conference
Our annual conference is a unique day-long event for LGBT parents, prospective parents, and children. Our conference strengthens, educates and organizes our community by providing more than 55 workshops for the adults, quality programming for the kids, a resource fair, and a family celebration at the end of the day. Our tenth last February drew a crowd of over 1,200. For more information, see our Conference page.
Newsletter
Our high-quality newsletter has a national audience and is distributed to our members to educate and connect our families, providing in-depth feature stories, resources, and networking opportunities. For a free copy, contact us at connect@rainbowfamilies.org. For a look at some of our reprints, check out the archive.
Community events and celebrations
We build community by providing opportunities for our parents, children and youth to meet others like themselves. A Halloween dance, roller-blading night, Children's Museum event, Gay Pride march and festivities, and our summer weekend family camps are some of the more popular events we hold regularly. See our Calendar of events for more information.
Resources and referral services
Our voicemail, email, website and publications provide needed access to information for parents and prospective parents. We have found that this is especially important to isolated families in suburbs and rural areas and for those coming out of heterosexual marriages. For more information, go to resources, or if you have a specific question, contact us at connect@rainbowfamilies.org.
Media relations
Rainbow Families' leadership serves as an essential voice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families in the media. We work with the media to provide positive representations of gay families in order to educate the public about the realities of gay and lesbian families.
If you are a member of the media and would like an interview, we'd be happy to help find appropriate Rainbow Families members with whom to speak. For more information, contact us at 612-827-7731 or connect@rainbowfamilies.org.
Speakers' bureau and public education
Volunteers give voice in the larger community about the needs and strengths of lesbian and gay families.
Requests for speakers
Rainbow Families can help find lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) parents or prospective parents to speak individually or on a panel for your college class, church function or other event. Ideally, we would request two weeks notice to find an individual speaker and three to four weeks to find a panel. Send the specific date, time, place and audience profile along with your contact information to connect@rainbowfamilies.org and our Speakers' Bureau coordinator will contact you.
Become a speaker
Rainbow Families is always looking for good speakers. If you would like to become a Rainbow Families speaker, please consider downloading our Speaker's Bureau Application (PDF) and attending a brief training.
For speakers on more general LGBT issues or for family members of LGBT people, please contact the Speakers' Bureau coordinator at OutFront Minnesota at speakers@outfront.org or PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) at (612) 825-1660.
Parent education
Throughout the year we provide forums and newsletter articles for parents and prospective parents concerning adoption, legal protection, school issues, and child development. For more information about upcoming events, refer to our Calendar of events.
Children's choir
Our choir of children, ages 5 to 10, gathers together each spring to sing for Gay Pride and other events. For more information, go to Calendar of events.
School advocacy
We work with parents and the schools to make schools accessible and safe for all kinds of families and to decrease name-calling and bullying. Visit our School resources page. For more information, contact us at 612-827-7731 or connect@rainbowfamilies.org.
Legal and legislative monitoring
We build coalitions with other groups to monitor proposed legislation that adversely affects our families.
Questions? Eamil connect@rainbowfamilies.org or call us at 612-827-7731.
All text, photographs, and images on this site are protected under copyright 2007-08 Rainbow FamiliesTM. The term “Rainbow FamiliesTM” is a registered trademark of Rainbow FamiliesTM, Minneapolis, MN.
Rainbow FamiliesTM, 711 West Lake Street, Suite 210, Minneapolis, MN 55408
612-827-7731, connect@rainbowfamilies.org