Staff Profile: Jake Sullivan’s Journey with LGBTQ+ Mentoring
June 12, 2023
Jake Sullivan (he/him) is the Training Delivery Manager with the MENTOR team. In this role, he is responsible for planning, curating, and delivering training and professional development content for mentoring practitioners, MENTOR Affiliates and other audiences to execute MENTOR’s national training strategy.
Jake has been with Linked Mentoring from the very beginning & is so grateful for this community. Growing up in Western MA, he graduated from Clark University in 2020, and currently lives in Baltimore, MD. His goal (both personally and professionally) is to find innovative, engaging and accessible ways to co-create systems of sharing knowledge while building compassionate and equitable community. In his free time, he enjoys collaging, reading, writing poetry, and spending time with friends.
Could you talk about your experience and journey with Linked Mentoring?
I became involved with Linked Mentoring about four years ago. Linked Mentoring was founded by a mother-son duo after the son came out and both mother and son were seeking community and resources. Initially, it started as a more traditional youth-group-style organization where folks would come in, meet, play games, and get to know each other in a group setting, and then over time they saw a lot of mentoring relationships form organically.
While that was happening, I was in college, and I really wanted to explore the idea of starting an LGBTQ+ youth mentorship program. I had been running an LGBTQ+ youth group with a local nonprofit and had done a lot of youth work at that point. Through that, I had seen the value of one-on-one mentoring, but I didn’t see a lot of organizations doing that specifically for and with LGBTQ+ youth. Friends introduced me to Linked Mentoring, and through that connection I founded their Linked Mentoring program, a one-on-one virtual mentoring program that matches LGBTQ+ youth with LGBTQ+ mentors. It has since become our most successful program.
What does your current involvement with Linked Mentoring look like?
My role has very much evolved over the years, but my “official” title is Director of Programs. However, in a grassroots, volunteer-run organization like Linked Mentoring, you basically wear every single hat! So while I have done a little bit of everything, my focus is primarily on mentor-mentee relationships, training, and match support. I work to ensure we have thorough, intentional, and equitable programming, training, and policies and procedures.
Has the program always been entirely volunteer-run?
In the past, it’s always been entirely run by volunteers, but we were recently able to hire our first paid staff member, a part-time community outreach coordinator. We’ve also received grant funding in the past that has enabled us to hire two paid interns, one of whom ended up becoming the president of Linked Mentoring. Both of those interns made a really, really incredible impact on the organization.
One of our main priorities now is securing funding for operational expenses so we can compensate those who are managing the program, like match coordinators and the folks doing community outreach.
How do you think being a grassroots organization benefits Linked Mentoring in its work?
I am such an advocate for elevating and learning from grassroots programs and grassroots organizations, especially when it comes to things like DEI work. With intentional and diverse leadership, you’re really able to bake DEI principles and equitable structures into the foundation of the program, rather than trying to retroactively address harmful or oppressive or inequitable structures within an existing organization. When an organization has existed for 30 years or even 10 years and has funding from a lot of different sources, they are often beholden to certain standards or values imposed by those funders. Conversely, as a grassroots organization, we can be really intentional and careful about the types of funders we approach and can ask questions like, “What type of work do they do? What do they stand for? Do we want to be connected to the values they hold?”
It is obviously hard being a volunteer-run organization sometimes. Volunteer retention can be difficult and it’s a privilege in many ways to be able to volunteer time, energy, and thought leadership and wisdom – a privilege not everybody has. But an advantage is that we aren’t boxed in by a larger entity, whether that’s a funder or a national organization. We have a lot of room for creativity and a lot of room for reflection.
I think one thing Linked Mentoring does really well is that we are a quality- over quantity-based organization. We take a lot of opportunities to continuously reflect on the work we’re doing and ensure that voices at all levels – including youth, families, volunteers, board members, and community partners – are in alignment and are being heard and valued. And if someone comes to us and tells us, “This program or practice is not actually very accessible,” we’re able to grow and change. We value taking time to ensure we’re doing things aligned with our core organizational values, versus just having to churn out work and meet deadlines.
Additionally, I think the creativity and innovation that come out of grassroots programs are reflective of what many really strong social justice movements are founded and based in: a sense of community, people uplifting themselves using the power within the community, and connecting people to learn from one another in community.
What need do you think Linked Mentoring is filling? Why do you think mentorship is important for LGBTQ+ youth?
Mentoring is very much baked into the history of the queer and trans communities. Thinking about the context of the United States and the history our LGBTQ+ elders had to navigate – those elders needed to build social support networks in order to survive, especially if their families were not accepting or were unaware of their identities. Through those networks, mentoring and intergenerational relationships have always been part of queer experiences. This is especially important if you don’t see people who look like you who have grown into old age. For example, the life expectancy of trans people, especially trans women of color, is so disproportionately young. People ask themselves, “How will I be able to live a full life? Is that even a possibility for me?” It’s essential to provide a space for those connections to form and for that visibility. For a young person to be able to look at someone and think, “This is a 50-year-old trans woman and she’s living a full life, she’s open about her identity, she has a job, she has friends,” that’s huge. Additionally, within the past couple of years, we have seen hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation be considered and/or passed throughout the country, alongside increased violence and hatred of the LGBTQ+ community. We need individuals, programs, and organizations to support our young people proudly, intentionally, and comprehensively, and to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community’s rights to live authentically.
A lot of our mentees come to us saying, “I want a mentor, and I want to connect with other queer and trans people.” It’s so courageous for a young person to say that. I think it’s especially valuable for LGBTQ+ youth to have mentors within the community because even if they aren’t specifically talking to their mentor about exploring their identity all the time, it’s huge to have someone who shares that common understanding of queer and trans experiences. It’s so important for us as adults to use our privilege to help those connections develop and to create structures where those relationships can flourish so those young people can experience all the things that they deserve.
Linked Mentoring is a virtual program. Was that an intentional choice?
We launched in September of 2019 as an in-person group mentoring program. Obviously the COVID pandemic happened shortly after that, and at that point we paused and reassessed how we could still do the work. This was really important to us because while all young people were affected, LGBTQ+ youth were disproportionately so, especially those with families who were unaware of their identities or who weren’t accepting. We knew we needed to keep doing this work for the young people who were stuck in the house with very little opportunity to get outside and be an authentic version of themselves, and be around other queer and trans people.
The biggest benefit to being a virtual program is that we’re able to expand the potential mentor pool we draw from. A mentee may come to us with specific goals or types of support they’d like to get from the program, and a person who’s able to fill those needs may not be available nearby. It’s amazing to be able to say to a young person in Massachusetts, “We found a mentor in California who’s exactly what you’re looking for.” Those matches are so successful because we’re not just forcing people together because they’re close in proximity; rather, we have the opportunity to be very intentional with our matches.
A virtual mentoring program also mitigates some of the obstacles I’d witnessed in my experience working with youth in in-person settings. There are basic things like finding a physical space and dealing with the budgetary implications of that, but there are also other considerations. For example, if someone isn’t out yet but is seen entering a space where an LGBTQ+ group meets, people can make assumptions about their identity. A lot of our mentees live in rural areas and live 45 minutes away from the closest youth group, and that problem becomes even more difficult to navigate if a young person’s family doesn’t know about their identity and they don’t have reliable transportation.
Thinking about your own personal journey: what led you to Linked Mentoring and to mentoring in general?
I knew in general that I wanted to work with youth. Growing up, I struggled with mental illness, and I felt very alone a lot of the time. I didn’t really have any adults in my life I felt I could trust and talk to. In a way I always wished I had an adult to say things to me like, “You’re being too hard on yourself,” or even, “You like to draw, let’s look for art classes.” And then there’s the LGBTQ+ side, of course. While I didn’t come out until I was in college, I knew in some way since I was 5 or 6 years old, and it was a very long process of coming to terms with it. There were a lot of feelings of loneliness and hopelessness, and a lot of confusion and frustration. Moving into adulthood, I wanted to do my part to reduce those feelings for young people, and make them feel seen and like they could be themselves.
One of the most impactful things for me was when I worked in a research lab in college doing research on LGBTQ+ families and family dynamics. The TA for that lab was a doctorate student who had a similar background to me: we had both grown up in low-income families and were queer and interested in building queer relationships. As a first-generation college student, I often experienced impostor syndrome. She helped build my confidence, and helped me understand that I deserved to take up space. That I deserved to be where I was. I considered pursuing a PhD, and while I have since changed my professional goals, she was there to help guide me along that process and provide a very transparent, honest, realistic kind of vision of what that could look like for me. Having someone like that who shared similar experiences to me who also wanted to take the time to get to know me as a human being was really, really impactful.
The final piece of why I was drawn to this work has to do with the fact that because I grew up the way I did, I spent a lot of time online. I was very into media, TV, and movies, and so even before I was sharing my identity with people and before I had fully come to terms with it, I was very immersed in the queer community online and in queer media. I’ve always had immense respect for those who came before us and who did a lot of the difficult work that allows me to be here talking about this and allows me to be doing this work that I’m doing today. I think education about that queer history is not as widespread as it should be, but more importantly, I think sometimes there is a hesitation for young people to engage with LGBTQ+ elders. For example, it’s a great thing that nowadays we are very values-driven and focused on saying things the right way, but it does sometimes create a disconnect between young people and elders because there’s a mindset of, “You didn’t do things the way I think they should be done. You didn’t use the word there that I would have used.” I think it’s important for younger LGBTQ+ people to understand that previous generations were using the tools and the language and the communal knowledge they had at the time. And on the flip side, I think elders have the ability to learn from young people about how language and movements have developed and evolved in recent years. So keeping all that in mind, I feel it’s important to learn and to build that intergenerational knowledge and community and connection.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I really want to elevate and highlight all the people I get to do this work with. Melissa Clark, who cofounded Linked Mentoring with her son Ryan and is now an advisor to the board, has done incredible work. Melissa has become and is one of the best advocates for LGBTQ+ youth I’ve ever met. She goes above and beyond, especially in a volunteer capacity supporting other parents and caregivers of LGBTQ+ youth. She also just has such an immense love and care for the youth in the program. She leads with so much compassion and curiosity and joy, and I think that’s just so important for young people to see a parent like that who is so embracing and loving of their LGBTQ+ child. Now, I also get to co-lead the organization with Izzy Spriggs (she/they) and Maxx LaBrie (they/he) within a distributed leadership structure. I have learned an immense amount from both of them, and think the absolute world of their drive, forward-thinking, compassion, and dedication to Linked Mentoring.
The other volunteers I work with at Linked Mentoring are genuinely some of the most dedicated, thoughtful, and innovative people I’ve ever met and gotten to work with. There’s such a common thread throughout the entire organization of humility and of transparency, and a collective understanding that we’re all learning and growing together.
Finally, the mentors and mentees are some of the coolest people I’ve ever gotten to meet. We are so lucky when it comes to the people who are drawn to Linked Mentoring. The mentors we’ve had have gone so above and beyond in terms of their dedication and their understanding that this is a program that’s very much in evolution. They are so empowered to be a part of that growth and are so caring and genuine in their desire to be the best possible mentors that they can be. And the mentees have shown up for themselves and for each other time and time again by planning events, leading groups, and putting their stamp on the program.
In short, this is just a really, really amazing group of people, and I have so much love for the people who do this work.