Our work is about breaking down barriers to homeownership and expanding opportunities for more families. Programs like Build with Pride help us reach communities that have too often been denied that opportunity—and by engaging our LGBTQ+ neighbors, we’re building a stronger, more connected community where everyone feels welcome.
Charleston, South Carolina, is home to a vibrant network of LGBTQ+ organizations and leaders who have long created spaces of connection, advocacy, and belonging. At the same time, many LGBTQ+ residents have experienced a disconnect from some of the faith-rooted and civic institutions that shape life across the region.
Recognizing this context, Charleston Habitat for Humanity, itself a faith-based organization, focused first on its own readiness to engage more inclusively with the LGBTQ+ community. Over the course of a year, staff and board participated in training, worked with consultants, and began building relationships with local LGBTQ+ organizations, including Charleston Pride, We Are Family, and Gay Charleston. The Habitat team showed up to community events, listened, and sought to build trust before proposing any formal collaboration.
In September 2025, that groundwork led to Build with Pride, a series of build days and a follow-up event shaped in partnership with local LGBTQ+ organizations. Seventy-four volunteers participated in building a safe, affordable home for future homeowner Leslie and her two children. Youth volunteers also designed a Pride-themed playhouse that was later featured in the Charleston Pride Parade.
Through this effort, Charleston Habitat strengthened relationships with LGBTQ+ partners and expanded who sees themselves reflected in its work. The initiative was shaped by community partners and contributed to ongoing internal shifts within the organization, including more inclusive practices and stronger volunteer engagement.
Charleston County, South Carolina, is home to roughly 415,000 people, spread across a landscape that is mostly urban but reaches into rural communities. Charleston County is majority white, the Black community accounts for about a quarter of the population, and there are smaller Hispanic/Latino, Asian, and multiracial populations. Following a recent merger with the East Cooper Habitat affiliate, Charleston Habitat now serves about 80% of the county.
Volunteering with Build with Pride was a powerful reminder of what’s possible when people of all ages come together with a shared purpose. Seeing our community show up for Leslie—neighbors, families, and first-time volunteers alike—was incredibly meaningful and speaks to the kind of impact we can have when everyone feels invited to be part of the work.
On the surface, the project Charleston Habitat launched to bring the LGBTQ+ and faith communities together through shared work on building homes seemed pretty straightforward. The team prioritized learning first, reading up on LGBTQ+ housing statistics, talking with other affiliates, and beginning to map the organizations in their community that were already doing inclusion work. Charleston Habitat began reaching out to potential partners with their original vision in mind, initiating early conversations with Charleston Pride and We Are Family in early 2025.
As their conversations with potential partners deepened and the team invested in early training, it became clear to Charleston Habitat that they weren’t yet in a position to lead the envisioned bridgebuilding externally. The organization historically hadn’t been visible in LGBTQ+ spaces, and the staff and board still had to work through what genuine inclusion meant in practice for their own workplace culture and operations. The team made an early adjustment to their plan to prioritize the internal work first, while continuing their partner conversations and becoming more present to LGBTQ+ community members and the organizations they already trusted. Over time, that consistent presence built sufficient trust for collaboration, and Charleston Pride, We Are Family, and Gay Charleston all became co-designers of Build with Pride.
Charleston Habitat brought in a consultant for internal training rooted in their core values and to open meaningful dialogue for staff and board members to explore inclusion, belonging, and the values they hoped to lead with publicly. That internal process ran alongside continued engagement with outreach to community partners, with the team showing up, collaborating, and having a supportive presence at LGBTQ+ events, including a We Are Family grand opening and Pride Night at the RiverDogs minor league baseball game.
On the logistics side, the team, often made up of LGBTQ+ individuals, coordinated closely with construction managers and site supervisors to plan the home build, drafted communications and promotional materials with their marketing staff, and organized a separate creative track for youth volunteers that would add an intergenerational dimension to the build days. Inviting LGBTQ+ partners and leaders into the planning process early and often proved to be beneficial for representation and collaboration.
The Build with Pride events took place September 12–13 and September 26, 2025. 74 volunteers showed up over those days to work on the renovation of a home for future homeowner Leslie and her two children. Adult volunteers did hands-on construction work alongside Habitat staff. Youth volunteers took on a separate creative project, designing and decorating a Pride-themed playhouse that would travel through the streets of Charleston during the Pride Parade in October.
Charleston Pride and We Are Family were present throughout as collaborators, whose involvement brought invaluable insight, leadership, and lived experience to the project. Their involvement made the event an authentic partnership with the LGBTQ+ community and led to other new partnerships with Gay Charleston and Charleston Black Pride. Habitat staff across departments contributed to the day: construction managers and site supervisors ran the build, communications staff managed media, and program and operations staff handled logistics.
After the events, the team emailed a survey to all 74 participants to collect feedback on their experiences. Combined with staff observations and partner input, the survey data provided Charleston Habitat with a foundation for evaluating what worked, where there was room to grow, and how to structure the second round of the initiative, which will focus on providing critical repairs for LGBTQ+ homeowners in the Charleston area.
Volunteers jackhammering old concrete from the renovation project during Build with Pride.
The Build with Pride events in September 2025 were designed to feel like genuinely joyful experiences of working and celebrating with neighbors. Across three days, 74 volunteers came together to help renovate an affordable home for Leslie and her kids, representing exactly the kind of stable, dignified housing future that Charleston Habitat exists to create.
Adult volunteers got to roll up their sleeves for hands-on construction work alongside Habitat staff and site supervisors. The younger volunteers designed and decorated a Pride-themed playhouse that became a symbol of the whole initiative — something made by young people, rooted in celebration, and visible to the whole city.
From the beginning, Charleston Habitat’s partners Charleston Pride and We Are Family were close collaborators. Their involvement ensured that Build with Pride was an authentic experience for the LGBTQ+ community, rather than a performative outreach event from an organization with no authentic connection to that group. It was a distinction that participants noticed. Charleston Habitat’s staff were also invested in the build days, with construction managers, communications staff, and program coordinators all contributing.
An additional 25 volunteers participated in the Pride Parade and Festival in October 2025, many of them newly recruited through Build with Pride outreach efforts and not previously engaged with Habitat. These volunteers were brought in through partnerships with local LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, targeted social media campaigns, and a visible presence at Pride-related events leading up to October. Their involvement not only extended the project’s reach beyond the build days, but also created meaningful entry points for ongoing engagement. Several participants have expressed interest in future builds and volunteer opportunities, helping to establish longer-term relationships with a more diverse and inclusive volunteer base.
The Team Up Project sees differences as a strength. Using a Respect–Relate–Cooperate framework, programs can encourage participants to engage across differences around a common goal or value by respecting others’ identities and perspectives, building mutually positive relationships, and working together across backgrounds on shared concerns.
Group photo from Day 2 of Build with Pride, with individual volunteers and a group from the MUSC Infectious Disease Department.
Youth volunteers designed and decorated a Pride-themed playhouse that later traveled the streets of Charleston in the Pride Parade.
Charleston Habitat started the project with honesty about where they were and where they needed to go. They recognized that showing respect for the community they hoped to build bridges with, as well as the seriousness of what bridgebuilding actually requires, entailed educating themselves before launching a public-facing inclusion initiative.
Relationships were built genuinely and slowly. They weren’t forced for the sake of getting a project goal accomplished. The team showed up at Charleston Pride events, attended a We Are Family grand opening, and Pride Night at the RiverDogs minor league baseball team. They didn’t attend with an agenda or an ask, but just as neighbors who were getting to know each other and as a team that sought to better understand the community. By the time Build with Pride launched, the partner organizations were well integrated into planning and were able to signal to their own community that this was a program that was safe for them and was worth their participation.
During the build days, volunteers of all backgrounds worked alongside each other toward the shared goal of a safe, affordable home for a neighbor who needed it. Their cooperation strengthened ties between participants and between the participants and organizations. The youth-led playhouse was something creative and visible that could extend cooperation into relationships with the community at large, which a build site alone couldn’t have provided.
Build with Pride shifted how Charleston Habitat operates: how it recruits volunteers, how it communicates across communities, and, crucially, how it thinks about who it is and its mission. The partner organizations were brought into Charleston Habitat’s project and shaped the direction of the work, and now they have begun inviting Habitat into their spaces in return. That reciprocity is the clearest sign that their partnership wasn’t just about a one-time event.
Internally, Charleston Habitat came out of this project with a staff and board that had done the harder work of aligning on values and working through what inclusion means in practice broadly and within their organization specifically. That internal foundation will make future home repairs for LGBTQ+ homeowners more credible and more likely to succeed than it otherwise would have been a year ago.
The Build with Pride model is well-suited to other Habitat affiliates, especially those looking to expand their relationships with communities that have historically felt excluded from faith-rooted service organizations. The combination of hands-on construction, creative youth programming, and visible community presence offers multiple entry points that can be adapted to different affiliate sizes, capacities, and local contexts. Beyond Habitat, faith-based organizations, civic groups, corporate inclusion programs, youth-serving nonprofits, and arts and culture organizations could all find elements of this model worth replicating.
Start with internal education and buy-in. Opening minds and addressing misconceptions took time and training, but that step was essential and ultimately strengthened the team’s confidence in sharing the message publicly.
Representation matters. Having LGBTQ+ voices at the table ensured that the initiative wasn’t just symbolic or a way for Habitat to check a box, but legitimately meaningful and authentic. Seeing that trusted validators from the LGBTQ+ community were active partners in this encouraged broader community buy-in.
Building relationships takes patience. Trust and partnerships weren’t built overnight, especially since Habitat hadn’t historically been visible in LGBTQ+ spaces. Consistent presence and a willingness to listen were the necessary postures, rather than just showing up with an ask or vision at the outset.
Allow for flexibility in response to realizations, even over sticking to a plan or initial vision. The original concept shifted as the team listened and learned. Be willing to adapt your vision when community needs and organizational readiness dictate that the project needs to be pursued differently than first envisioned.
Celebrate small wins. From securing the first LGBTQ+ community partner to recruiting youth volunteers, every milestone built up Charleston Habitat’s momentum. Recognizing progress, and not just the end goal, can help sustain enthusiasm and collective energy when it might otherwise feel like slow going.
