BRIDGES BY STARTING OVER STRONGER, INC.
Bridge Builder Chair
About the Role
The Bridge Builder Chair holds a vital seat on the Bridges Board, and is reserved for a she-ro who has survived the journey our participants are now facing and where there seems to be no way, she will make a way. The Bridge Builder helps ensure our decisions, programs, and resources remain grounded in the realities of people navigating abuse, coercive control, divorce, family crisis, or significant life transition. This role brings lived experience, resourcefulness, and practical problem-solving to the table, helping Bridges turn barriers into possible next steps.
Why this role matters: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Sometimes people need help seeing it. A resource list alone does not change someone’s life. The Make a Way Committee helps build the bridge between what someone needs and the people, resources, relationships, and creative solutions that can make moving forward possible.
Ideal Candidate
• Brings meaningful lived experience navigating abuse, coercive control, divorce, family crisis, or another significant family transition.
• Has reached a place where that experience can be used constructively to help others while maintaining healthy personal boundaries.
• Understands the real-world barriers that can make leaving an unhealthy or toxic relationship feel impossible.
• Resourceful, creative, compassionate, nonjudgmental, and naturally inclined to look for solutions when the obvious path is blocked.
Board Responsibilities
Term: One year | Time Commitment: Approximately 3–5 hours per month, including monthly Board of Directors meetings beginning January 2027, committee leadership, and occasional planning or collaboration. Additional time may be needed for special projects and events, with opportunities to contribute more during this early growth stage.
• Attend monthly Board of Directors meetings and actively participate in discussion, planning, and decision-making.
• Commit approximately one-two hours per week to planning, committee, outreach, or other Bridges activities, with opportunities to contribute additional time to launch Bridges.
• Make an annual financial contribution meaningful to you and consistent with your ability.
• Actively advocate for Bridges by sharing our mission, promoting events and initiatives, and helping expand awareness in the community.
• Use your experience, relationships, and community connections to help Bridges develop partnerships, identify resources, and open doors that further the mission.
Make a Way Committee Responsibilities
• Help Bridges leadership build the Make a Way Committee and share responsibility for welcoming, organizing, and leading committee members, including others with lived experience.
• Lead committee meetings and help the team identify practical barriers facing Bridges participants and creative ways to overcome them.
• Map and maintain community resources related to housing, employment, childcare, transportation, financial stability, safety, legal support, mental health, education, and other needs that can make ending an unhealthy relationship possible.
• Build relationships that create options beyond traditional resource lists. This might mean identifying a private landlord willing to consider someone rebuilding without traditional proof of income, finding an employment connection, or knowing who to call when the usual system says no.
• Help recruit, organize, and maintain a network of Bridges volunteers, while collaborating with other committees on volunteers needed for specialized work.
• Bring lived experience into Bridges planning so our programs remain grounded in what participants actually face.