Building the conditions for connection to flourish.
A 2026 snapshot of how Queerlective is building statewide social infrastructure through art, affirming resources, shared space, and community-led connection.
Building belonging across New Hampshire.
Queerlective is strengthening the social infrastructure New Hampshire needs: affirming resources, creative spaces, community-led gatherings, trusted relationships, and meaningful ways for people to contribute.
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General identified loneliness and social isolation as urgent public health concerns and called on community-based organizations to strengthen local social infrastructure, create inclusive opportunities for connection, cultivate participation, and build a culture of belonging.
This work is helping Queerlective move beyond isolated events toward a more durable statewide ecosystem connecting queer, trans, BIPOC, disabled, rural, and otherwise marginalized people with resources, relationships, creative opportunity, and one another.
A community wedding at CoLab, officiated by a drag performer, Sybill Disobedience.
How Queerlective is building community infrastructure
Queerlective’s community-supported growth helped move the organization from resource creation to statewide distribution, regional convening, and deeper member-led infrastructure through its State of Queer NH Resource Book project.
Step 1. Build the resource
Queerlective gathered 175 affirming resources and 31 creative submissions representing queer life across New Hampshire.
Step 2. Put it in trusted hands
State of Queer NH was distributed directly to community members and through 15 partner organizations in every region of the state.
Step 3. Listen for what was missing
The process revealed regional gaps in access to affirming spaces, relationships, and opportunities to gather.
Step 4. Convene locally
Queerlective began supporting community-led gatherings, starting with North Country Commons.
Step 5. Strengthen the home base
CoLab grew to 17 active member-volunteers and the statewide Discord community reached 425 members.
What Queerlective’s community has already helped build
These numbers show a growing network of people, resources, artists, and local institutions.
Queerlective is local health infrastructure.
The Surgeon General’s Advisory makes a clear case that social connection is not merely a personal matter. Communities need places, networks, organizations, and shared practices that make meaningful relationships possible.
Queerlective uses art as an intervention for connection. People do not simply attend our programs. They contribute artwork, volunteer, host gatherings, make friends, earn income, find resources, step into leadership, and help create the community they need.
Art is the entry point. Belonging is the outcome.
Queerlective circulates opportunity by paying artists and community members for their creativity, labor, and leadership.
State of Queer NH
A statewide resource book has become a platform for visibility, connection, and local action.
State of Queer NH brings together affirming organizations, businesses, artists, services, community groups, and gathering spaces. The underlying resource data currently includes 175 listings spanning the Merrimack Valley, Seacoast, White Mountains, Monadnock Region, North Country, Lakes Region, Dartmouth–Lake Sunapee Region, Great North Woods, statewide resources, and national resources available to New Hampshire residents.
The project also includes 31 creative submissions from 24 contributors, including writing, artwork, poetry, photography, ceramics, illustrations, essays, and interactive content. These contributions ensure that the book is not only useful, but reflects the culture, imagination, and lived experience of queer New Hampshire.
Distribution through trusted community partners
The book is reaching people through the places where they already seek support, learning, culture, health care, and community.
From statewide mapping to local gathering
State of Queer NH did more than document resources. It helped us see where connection was missing.
The resource-building process surfaced a consistent need for more opportunities to gather outside New Hampshire’s largest population centers. In response, Queerlective began developing regional gatherings, starting with North Country Commons.
North Country Commons brings local residents, artists, musicians, organizations, and neighbors together to build relationships and imagine what stronger community infrastructure can look like in northern New Hampshire.
This model reflects the Surgeon General’s call for locally tailored, community-led social infrastructure. Rather than delivering a fixed program to a region, Queerlective is working to help residents identify what they need and gives them the tools, relationships, and support to build it.
This process began with a community listening session in May 2026. The gathering surfaced substantial community appetite for more structured opportunities to gather. This led to the North Country Commons gatherings scheduled for July. Through these ongoing gatherings, we hope to co-design infrastructure for these communities that addresses the needs specific to them.
CoLab is growing through shared ownership.
CoLab is Queerlective's project working towards developing shared governance models for community-run spaces. CoLab now has 17 active members who also act as volunteers, helping sustain the space and build the programs they want to see.
A community podcast at CoLab exploring community building and civic engagement with One Quick Thing Pod.
Members host gatherings, staff open hours, welcome new people, support artist retail, organize projects, share skills, and continuously shape the direction of the space. Rather than operating as customers, members function as co-creators, building the kind of community they want to see.
That distinction matters. The Surgeon General’s Advisory identifies participation, volunteering, and meaningful contribution as key pathways to social connection. CoLab gives people a recurring place where relationships can deepen over time and where community members can move from attendee to contributor, host, collaborator, and leader.
Early community impact survey results
The first eight survey responses already show strong signals of belonging, reduced isolation, authentic expression, hope, and community connection.
“Moving to the Manchester area in the height of the pandemic, I thought my world of queer friendships was fading away. I joined the Discord and tried something outside my comfort zone, and it was the best decision I ever made. I now have friends who live close who I trust to support me.” Community impact survey respondent
“My birthday party this year was about 90% Queerlective members. These people show up for you, and it inspires me to show up for others too.”Community impact survey respondent
What connection looks like in people’s lives
“As a relative newcomer to NH, seeing Queerlective go from concept to a scalable organization has been amazing. The State of Queer solidifies their role as a convener and change agent at a really important time in our history. I’ve lived in SF and Boston and neither location has anything even remotely similar. It has been wonderful to see it get picked up and leveraged by individuals and companies throughout the state.” Blackbird Collective
A participant in the Undoing Racism workshop. Queerlective supported a cohort of six people to attend.
One connected ecosystem, multiple layers of impact
Queerlective’s impact is not limited to one publication, gathering, or creative space. Each part of the work helps activate a broader chain of community outcomes.
Community investment is built into the model.
A significant share of Queerlective’s spending, aside from internal payroll, supports artists, performers, vendors, printers, creative production, and community programming.
January 1 through June 30, 2026
| Financial measure | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total revenue | $84,640 |
| Total expenditures | $44,637 |
| Internal payroll expense | $22,628 |
| Non-payroll expenditures | $22,009 |
| Artist commissions and contract labor | $6,188 |
| Sales commissions | $2,586 |
| Printing, manufacturing, and product costs | $11,260 |
| Event expenses, entertainment, food, and drink | $2,653 |
More than overhead
At least $20,100 in first-half spending went toward creative production, artist commissions and contract labor, product and printing costs, and event delivery. That is approximately 91% of all non-payroll expenditures.
Separately, the artist-payment transaction data reviewed includes 53 completed payments totaling approximately $3,355 to 25 unique recipients. These payments include retail sales, poster and publication design, performances, creative stipends, State of Queer NH content, childcare support, workshop and event contributions, and other paid community roles.
This is central to Queerlective’s approach. Community members are not only beneficiaries. They are paid creators, performers, vendors, collaborators, facilitators, and partners.
Community ownership in action
During NH Gives, Queerlective ranked 23rd statewide by number of individual donors, while raising just under $4,000.
This result tells a deeper story than the total alone. Many Queerlective supporters are artists, LGBTQ+ people, young adults, and people with limited disposable income. They may not be able to make large gifts, but they still chose to participate.
The breadth of those contributions demonstrates trust, ownership, and collective care. Queerlective is not simply delivering services to a community. It is helping cultivate a community that sees this work as its own and wants to sustain it for others.
“I think our results from NH Gives provide a great understanding of Queerlective's role in our community. Many people cared enough to contribute, even when they could not contribute a lot.” Randall Nielsen, Executive Director, Queerlective
Queerlective’s 2026 board at CoLab.
What additional investment would make possible
Queerlective’s progress shows that the need is real, the community is engaged, and this model is capable of growing.
