Join the HIPS Board of Directors

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HIPS is recruiting new Board members!
Interested candidates should apply by Oct 14, 2025, for a three-year term starting January 2026.

Why Join the HIPS Board?

• HIPS is a frontline harm reduction organization that has spent nearly 30 years walking alongside sex workers, drug users, and people surviving poverty, street economies, and housing insecurity in DC. In these times of chaos and crisis, this work matters more than ever.
• We need Board members who are ready to support and amplify this mission—not just from the sidelines, but in the trenches. Our staff and volunteers are out every day doing the work: distributing supplies, preventing overdoses, advocating for decriminalization, and building safety where systems have failed.
• This is a pivotal time. Board members play a key role in making that vision a reality—by helping us build sustainability, raise critical funds, and ensure long-term organizational stability.
• Lived experience matters. Board members should have, be willing to learn, and/or have strong empathy for the skills and expertise that come from direct lived experience of workers in street economies.
• No prior board experience? No problem. We offer training for new members in both Board basics and HIPS’s harm reduction framework, values, and organizing principles.
• This is not just a governance role—it’s an opportunity to be part of a community rooted in radical love, innovation, and deep commitment to justice. Serving on the HIPS Board means helping to guide an organization that consistently shows up—with compassion and courage—for the most marginalized, including Black and brown queer and trans folks who are too often forgotten.
• As one current Board member put it:  "Serving this organization has been one of the great honors of my life. HIPS doesn’t just change systems—it changes hearts, it changes outcomes, and it saves lives."​

How to Apply
Interested candidates can learn more about Board expectations and apply via the application here. The application submission deadline is Oct 14, 2025. 

Board Application