EmpowerQ Needs Your Support
- Jeremiah Ajayi
- Jul 2
- 6 min read
I was leaving Ms DSF’s show at Ultima Studio on December 24, 2025 when I heard a group of louts opposite the gate shouting, “Na boy or girl?” The question took a moment to register as being directed at me. By the time it did, the shout had become serious, the crowd had grown, and my friend, who was with me, was scared. One of them came directly to me and said "oga, you must leave here." I made it to my ride.
I sat in the car shaking, replaying how quickly a fun night with my homegirls had become unsafe.
For days, I kept thinking:
If this could happen to me, with everything I have protecting me, what happens to queer Nigerians with far less?
What happens to the queer person who has no emergency contact to call? No savings to fall back on if they lose their job over a rumor? No community to absorb them when their family cuts them off?
That question is why EmpowerQ exists.
For queer people in Nigeria, safety is tied to money, work, networks, and options. A better job can mean leaving an unsafe home. Remote work can mean more control. A mentor can mean fewer mistakes. A professional community can mean not having to figure everything out alone.
EmpowerQ, registered as Career Growth Initiative for the Disadvantaged, exists to help queer Nigerians access the career tools, mentorship, research, community, and job pathways for improved finances and safety.
Below is what we have built in 2026 so far, what it has cost, and what we need next.
Workshops
We organized five workshops in Q1 '2026, covering our workforce report findings, starting the year with intention, navigating business school applications, resume building building and salary negotiation, and digital safety.
These workshops attracted over 200 attendees in total.
The opportunities tracker and community
We also built an opportunities tracker that hundreds of queer professionals now use to find jobs, fellowships, grants, internships, and other career opportunities.
For a community often locked out of informal professional networks, this matters. Many opportunities still move through who you know, what rooms you are in, and which circles you have access to. The tracker helps close that gap by making opportunities easier to find, understand, and act on.
Alongside that, our community has grown to more than 100 members. It has become a place where people share opportunities, ask career questions, find support, and feel less alone while navigating work.
AI career accelerator bootcamp
We built the AI career accelerator bootcamp to help queer professionals develop digital and AI skills that open doors to remote and global work.
The bootcamp ran across four modules and gave 70+ participants hands-on exposure to tools and prompts they could apply immediately in their job search, freelance work, and current roles.
Career Bestie
Career Bestie is our AI career support tool, built to help with job search, interview preparation, workplace navigation, red flag detection, and career planning.
We built the first version, our MVP, on Gemini. Testing with the community taught us something important: they want a tool that understands the specific pressures of building a career while queer in Nigeria, and that can be there when a decision needs to be made and there is no one else to ask.
Career Bestie needs to move from a working prototype into a stable product people can return to.
We want to build out CV review, interview preparation, salary negotiation support, job search planning, workplace red flag detection, and personalised career guidance inside one tool built specifically for queer professionals navigating the Nigerian job market and beyond.
Out of Office Vol. 1
Out of Office was our biggest proof of demand yet.
Over 100 queer professionals registered and showed up, alongside partners including the Freelance Coalition for Developing Countries and the Queer African Network.
The room held storytelling, a panel, networking, a ballroom competition, and a DJ set. For many people there, it was one of the only times they had been in a professional room where they did not have to edit themselves.
Safety and consent shaped how we documented the event. We were careful about photos and about who could be identified, because for many attendees, visibility carries real risk outside that room.
Out of Office proved that the room is needed.
But events open doors. Programmes walk people through them.
What it took to make this happen
None of this ran on a full budget.
Between Q1 and now, EmpowerQ has spent $2,400 (N3.2 million) while receiving only $1,285 (1.7 million) in funding, most of which went toward Out of Office and our upcoming hackathon.
The rest came from volunteer labour, personal sacrifice, and a team stretching every naira as far as it could go.
That spending has gone toward venue and logistics, facilitator support, design and communications, event production, participant support, the tools and technology behind Career Bestie, and basic operations.
We are sharing these numbers because impact costs money, and this work cannot run on goodwill alone.
What we have learned
A few things have become clear.
The community is ready. Every event fills up faster than the one before it.
People need practical career support, not symbolic inclusion.
Safe professional spaces are rare here, and the demand for them is bigger than we expected.
Tools like Career Bestie can scale support in ways our small team cannot.
One-off events are powerful, but they are not enough.
Events open doors. Programmes walk people through them.
That is why our next phase is focused on building the ladder.
What comes next
We are building four connected pieces of career infrastructure for queer professionals in Nigeria.
Lavender Ladder
Lavender Ladder is our year-long employment-readiness programme that will support more than 100 marginalised Nigerian youth who face documented barriers to safe work, mentorship, and career progression.
Over 12 months, participants will receive practical skills training, mentorship, workplace-readiness support, CV and interview coaching, salary negotiation guidance, portfolio development, employer access, and continued follow-up as they move toward jobs, internships, freelance work, and better income opportunities.
The programme will require trainers, mentors, facilitators, learning materials, participant data support, employer partnerships, programme coordination, monitoring and evaluation, safeguarding systems, and ongoing community support.
Where Out of Office built a room, Lavender Ladder builds a ladder out of it. The programme launches next month, August 2026.
Career Bestie, as an app
Career Bestie needs to become more than an MVP.
We want to build it into a stable AI-powered career coach that can support queer professionals with CV reviews, interview preparation, job search planning, salary negotiation, workplace red flag detection, and personalized guidance.
For people who may not have access to safe mentors, this tool can become a first layer of support.
Out of Office Vol. 2
Out of Office Vol. 1 showed us what happens when queer professionals are given a room built around their realities.
Out of Office Vol. 2 will expand that work into a stronger career-learning and networking space, with deeper programming, more practical sessions, more employer and mentor participation, and stronger community infrastructure.
The goal is to create a space where queer professionals can learn, connect, build confidence, and access opportunities.
The second edition of our LGBTQ+ Workforce Report
Our workforce report has become one of our most important tools for advocacy and employer education.
The second edition will help us document employment barriers, track changes over time, gather deeper data, and build stronger evidence for why inclusive career support is urgently needed.
Without data, people can dismiss what queer professionals are experiencing as isolated stories. The report helps us show the pattern.
The funding gap
Without funding, our progress slows even as the need keeps growing.
We are looking to move from scrappy, month-to-month execution into something sustainable. Something we can plan a full year around instead of planning one event at a time.
EmpowerQ is raising ₦25 million ($18,200) in combined funding and in-kind support to fund our next phase: Lavender Ladder, Career Bestie, Out of Office Vol. 2, and the second edition of our LGBTQ+ Workforce Report.
What your support will make possible
Your support goes directly toward:
building Career Bestie into a usable app;
delivering the Lavender Ladder programme;
coordinating facilitators, mentors, and trainers;
covering participant data and internet costs;
developing learning materials and career resources;
running community operations;
supporting programme communications;
tracking monitoring and evaluation;
maintaining safeguarding and privacy systems;
hosting Out of Office Vol. 2;
funding the third edition of our LGBTQ+ Workforce Report.
This work pays for the tools, rooms, people, systems, and support that help queer professionals move from survival to opportunity.
What different kinds of support can do
₦25,000 can support participant data and internet access.
₦50,000 can fund learning materials and career resources.
₦100,000 can support a CV, LinkedIn, or interview clinic.
₦250,000 can support a mentorship or career-readiness session.
₦500,000 can help fund programme coordination and participant support.
₦1 million+ can support a training pathway, research work, or major programme delivery.
If you cannot fund directly, an introduction can still move this work forward.
How you can help
If you are an individual donor, a sponsor, or part of a CSR or grant-making team, your contribution goes straight into the programmes above. Donate here.
Introduce us
If you know funders, employers, foundations, CSR leads, or leaders at inclusive workplaces, a warm introduction can open doors we cannot open alone.
Partner with us.
As a mentor, trainer, employer, venue partner, software provider, recruiter, or facilitator, there is a place for you in this work.
Share this.
If someone in your circle should know EmpowerQ exists, tell them. Some of our strongest partnerships started with a single share.
Jeremiah Ajayi,
Co-Founder & Executive Director, EmpowerQ
Comments