Rainbow Alliance for Youth of Wisconsin

The Rainbow Alliance for Youth (RAY) of Wisconsin focuses on building capacity, nurturing leadership, and strengthening collaborations to develop comprehensive programs addressing the needs of LGBTQ youth in Wisconsin and throughout the country. By integrating LGBTQ youth programs into mainstream community efforts about prevention, youth, and social justice issues, RAY can focus on LGBTQ youth as leaders and resources to their community, maximizing their development and risk prevention as well as enhancing communities.

RAY member groups share perspectives of several key aspects of the work of developing LGBTQ youth in communities. First, they use an LGBTQ Youth Development Model. This model incorporates several innovative concepts and strategies as applied to an LGBTQ youth population. It holds that LGBTQ youth develop through planned and unplanned means and are subject to socially-induced stressors that increase risk and challenge resiliency. It further proposes that youth are a community asset, so community failures in addressing the needs of LGBTQ youth constitute both a personal crisis for the youth and families involved, and a public cost of lost potential and the consequences of risk behaviors.

Learn More

For more information about the Rainbow Alliance for Youth of Wisconsin, please send us an email.  We’ll do our best to get back to you within three business days.

RAY Groups

Central Wisconsin – Outreach Youth Central
ARCW
1105 Grand Ave.
Suite 1
Schofield, WI 54476
Contact: Carley Zartner
Phone:  (715) 355-6867
Toll Free:  (800) 551-3311
Email:  

Eau Claire – Q2
ARCW
505 Dewey St. S
Suite 107
Eau Claire, WI 54701
Contact:  Dale Larson
Phone:  (715) 836-7710 x3210
Toll Free:  (800) 750-2437 x3210
Email: 

La Crosse – GALAXY
LGBT Resource Center for the 7 Rivers Region
230 6th St. S
La Crosse, WI 54601
Contact:  Jackson Jantzen
Phone:  (608) 784-0452
Email:  

Milwaukee – Pathfinders
4200 N Holton St.
Suite 400
Milwaukee, WI 53212
Contact:  Susannah Bartlow
Phone:  (414) 988-6893
Email:  

Milwaukee – Project Q
Milwaukee LGBT Community Center
1110 N Market St.
2nd Floor (Courtyard Entrance)
Milwaukee, WI 53202
Website:  www.mkelgbt.org/youth
Contact:  Charles Smart
Phone:  (414) 292-3066
Fax:  (414) 271-2161
Email:  

Neenah / Menasha – Safe Group
Youth Go
213 Nicolet Blvd.
Neenah, WI 54956
Contact:  Alice Zarda
Phone:  (920) 722-1435
Email: