Culture · Washington
One In Ten Made Volunteer-Led LGBTQ Arts a Washington Institution
Washington, D.C.’s One In Ten began as the parent organization for Reel Affirmations and grew into an all-volunteer LGBTQ arts nonprofit with a major place in the city’s film and Pride history.
By KLGBT News Desk ·
One In Ten is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit focused on LGBTQ arts. The organization is run primarily through volunteer efforts, with its programs—including its best-known project, Reel Affirmations—conceived, organized and carried out by volunteers. A full-time, paid executive director handles the organization’s daily operations, while a governing board consists of three officers and nine additional members.
The group’s roots date to 1990, when Barry Becker, Mark Betchkal, Matthew Cibellis and Keith Clark began meeting as gay residents of Washington. They established One In Ten as a parent organization for a new LGBTQ film festival and sought guidance from Frameline, described in the source material as the largest LGBT gay film festival in the United States at the time. Frameline also provided financial and administrative assistance during the project’s early development.
The first Reel Affirmations festival opened on October 11, 1991. Since then, the festival has been identified as One In Ten’s largest program. The source describes it as the third-largest LGBT film festival in the United States by attendance and the largest all-volunteer film festival in the world.
That combination of scale and volunteer administration is central to One In Ten’s identity. Rather than separating the organization’s cultural work from its community labor, the structure places volunteers at the center of producing its programs. The arrangement also distinguishes the festival from arts events operated primarily by paid staff, even as One In Ten maintains a paid executive director for day-to-day management.
One In Ten’s work is part of Washington’s LGBTQ cultural history as well as its film history. The organization was founded locally by four residents and developed a recurring festival with national prominence. Its formation also shows how established LGBTQ arts groups can help new local projects get started through advice, funding and administrative support.
The organization later took on responsibility for organizing Washington’s Gay Pride Day events in 1995, according to the source extract. That development expanded One In Ten’s role beyond film and connected its arts work with one of the city’s major LGBTQ public celebrations. Together, Reel Affirmations and the Pride responsibilities placed One In Ten at the intersection of cultural programming, volunteer organizing and LGBTQ civic life in the capital.
For Washington readers, One In Ten offers a useful example of how a nonprofit can build a lasting arts presence from a volunteer foundation. Its story begins with four residents, an effort to create a local film festival and support from an established LGBTQ arts organization. Its continuing significance, as presented in the source, rests on the reach of Reel Affirmations and the volunteer model behind it.
Source and reuse information This automatically generated backgrounder adapts text from “One in Ten (organization)” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_in_Ten_(organization) The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. The source article’s linked references are provided below where available. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.
Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://web.archive.org/web/20110523101807/http://filmfestivals.com/servlet/JSCRun?obj=FichePro&CfgPath=ffs&Cfg=search.cfg&id=1251 - https://web.archive.org/web/20070930081729/http://www.outintvandfilm.org/resources/festivals.html Image rights Photograph description: A historic dialogue with some of the LGBTQ Communities of Washington, DC. Guided by some of the most transformational leaders of our time. Everyone deserves to be safe. Creator: Ted Eytan. License: CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2017.05.09_LGBTQ_Communities_Dialogue_and_Capital_Pride_Board_Meeting_Washington_DC_USA_4575_(33746456333).jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.