Community

This page is all about how Good Night Out shows up in community, beyond the direct services we provide, and to also open up dialogue around our learning edges.


Although Good Night Out has been around since 2015, it feels like we all of the sudden got really busy, really fast… without a lot of resources. As an organization, we are aware that this path is one way that grass-roots groups find themselves falling into patterns of organizational behavior that look a lot like capitalism - hustle culture (white supremacy), exploitation (settler colonialism), gatekeeping, and being complacent with a lack of genuine internal equity (aka contributing to the non-profit industrial complex).

While many of our services paused during the pandemic we started to map the many thoughts, actions, skills, hopes, gaps, dreams, tensions, and resources we have or need in order to continue to do sexual violence prevention work. More formal and organized plans are to come, as we work with each other, the community, and a consultant.

For now, you can:

  1. Review GNO’s current practices to contribute to equity, safety, and liberation

  2. Check-in on GNO’s gaps and progress addressing them

  3. Share your GNO experience with the Board of Directors (including your perspective on 1 and 2)

+ Current Practices

General / All programs

  • All programs operate from trans and sex-work inclusive lens
  • Ensuring the land acknowledgment used in all of our meetings captures our current organizational reflections and commitments to address colonialism and its links to sexual violence
  • Participation in regular campaigns to generate funds and/or awareness for BIPOC organizations (ie our 2021 zine)
  • Upholding a core pillar of Good Night Out’s work and our vision for safer music and nightlife sectors - that the contributions of women, femmes, folks of Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander Ancestry and folks of marginalized genders and sexualities are not extracted without compensation. Therefore we strive to offer an honorarium that reflects a living wage for our educational and outreach services.
  • All data collected from any of our programs can be accessed by other grassroots organizations to support their work or fundraising

Education Programming:

  • Hiring Contract Educators that represent intersectional identities and a variety of lived experiences
  • All educational content on sexualized violence is taught with a lens that makes the links between sexualized violence and colonialism and white supremacy
  • A wide breadth of intersectional support resources are shared following workshops
  • Educational program budget includes a line item for honorariums for community members from diverse background to review and contribute content.
  • All educational material is delivered in a manner that accommodates accessibility needs of audiences and related imagery does not default to Eurocentric / able bodied standards or use language that positions or encourages non-Black people to take on a tone that is or sounds like AAVE
  • Contract Educators have $250 / year each to participate in professional development with requests focusing on intersectional and anti-oppressive approaches to sexual violence being prioritized
  • Zero workshop fees for organizations working within Vancouver’s downtown eastside or working with sex workers
  • Demographic information is collected from all workshop participants to help hold the education program accountable to reflecting the needs and realities of audience
  • All training participants complete an evaluation to capture how the session did or did not meet their unique needs

Board of Directors and leadership

  • Internal equity work iniated with funding awarded through CSSTF Community Social Services Training Fund,Organizational Grant, including courses with Nahanee Creative Inc and Hook or Crook Consulting
  • Women (trans and cis inclusive) and non-binary people must make up majority of board%
  • 3 spots on board are reserved for folks indicating they hold intersection identities that are under-represented in non-profit and organizational leadership%
  • Board support fund is available for folks in those positions to access funds to help reduce *barriers to participating in an un-paid board role (childcare, professional development costs etc.)·
    %written into bylaws

Good Night Out Granville Street Team

  • Remain focused on and committed to the vision that teams like this can be an alternative to police interventions to threats to public realm safety
  • Street Team members represent intersectional identities and lived experiences
  • Application and interview process is made as low barrier as possible
  • Applications from people with barriers to employment are prioritized
  • Extensive training to team on anti-oppressive community intervention practices
  • Team operates from a harm reduction framework when interacting with people under the influence or experiencing mental health crisis
  • Team is compensated amount that reflects a living wage in the City of Vancouver

+ In Progress & Gaps

  • Creation of a Code of Conduct for GNO
  • Draft Community Conduct reporting and response tool has been created and posted (knowing it will likely need ongoing revision),as a means to collect any concerns about the conduct of GNO representatives, specifically to address any suspected power-based violence. This work and the application of these tools is rooted in the principles of Transformative Justice
  • Engage in internal conversations around adressing cultural appropriation
  • Have strong plans in place to prevent, recognize and support each other in the face of burn out

+ Talk to the Board

You can submit feedback anonymously but if you’d like a response, please include your email address. Your feedback will be read by the Good Night Out Board of Directors. Any details submitted will be kept confidential unless given clear permission by the submitter.

To learn more about the board before submitting, you can email board@goodnightoutvancouver.com

Feedback form is here