Join AGIR Montreal's Board of Directors

Love AGIR? Join our Board!

Role Summary

AGIR is seeking new members to sit on our Board of Directors. AGIR’s board is made up of 9 volunteers who come together to help steer the organization and ensure its social and financial integrity. The Board is elected by community members and is accountable to our service users, staff, and broader community. As a Board member, you are responsible for upholding the organization’s mission, ensuring ethical and legal integrity, governance and accountability, providing financial oversight, and ensuring that AGIR has the resources needed to advance its mission. Board members bring a mix of skills and backgrounds to the table and are committed to ensuring the success of AGIR and its mission.

Note: being a board member is an unpaid position, and limits the possibilities for obtaining paid work through AGIR. Please consider this when applying.

Who is AGIR?

AGIR’s mission is to protect and defend the legal, social, and economic rights of migrants (asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants, and those with undetermined status) from lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQIA+) communities through support services to support their settlement into communities and group and social activities to overcome social exclusion.

Specifically, our work aims to provide LGBTQIA+ migrants and refugees in need of:

• Services to support their settlement into the community through:
  • Individual Support Services to assess and refer their needs in the areas of housing, interpretation, social services, employment, education, or to whatever appropriate services if necessary;
  • Group Support Services to help them overcome social exclusion and isolation through capacity building and community building;
  • Social Activities to help them overcome social exclusion and isolation through capacity building and community development initiatives;
  • Receiving donations and distributing basic necessities or amenities of life that most people take for granted (like food cards, clothing donation distributions, etc. according to our capacity)
• Education and Public Awareness work that strives to change systemic practices that exclude, harm or even result in differential treatment towards LGBTQIA+ migrant and refugees

What is the role of an AGIR Board member, and who are we looking for?

The AGIR board of directors governs the organization, providing community oversight of the organization.

Broadly, board members are collectively responsible for the following:

• Collaborating with 8 other board members and the Executive Director to ensure accountability to AGIR’s “heartbeat” (basis of unity) and mission. To see more about general board member duties, we encourage you to check out this training tool on Board of Directors: Roles and Responsibilities by the Centre for Community Organizations;
• Ensuring the sustainable management of organizational activities, including the financial sustainability of the organization;
• Helping to achieve strategic priorities and directions; monitor compliance with established guiding principles, bylaws and policies;
• Ensuring accountability to AGIR members by acting in the best interests of AGIR as an organization.

Concretely, Board members are also expected to:

• Attend monthly 2-hour meetings,
• Communicate reliably in between meetings over email,
• Be actively engaged in the work of the Board, carrying out specific duties, as required, for example:
  • Responding to emergent issues;
  • Providing guidance and support to the Executive Director;
  • Participate actively in other committee(s) and key events;
  • Participate in a retreat shortly after appointment / election;
  • Attend board member training and participate in other board development activities, including on-boarding-related activities.

In AGIR’s current context, the organization is also looking for prospective Board members who would be able to specifically support any of the following:

• Actively engaging in a bargaining process with a newly unionizing staff
• Participating in implementing a recently developed strategic plan;
• Engaging in long-term financial planning, funding and partnership development, and grants management;

AGIR in general seeks individuals who:

• Are committed to AGIR’s by-and-for values – also known as its “heartbeat,”
• Are knowledgeable – with particular attention to those who have lived and living experience – of migrant and / or refugee justice issues; preferably in the Quebec and Canadian colonial context;
• Have an affinity for shared leadership, oversight and/or strategic roles,
• Are collaborative and have good relational skills, e.g. empathetic listening, initiative, communication, and conflict resolution skills;
• Are able to exercise a high degree of confidentiality and discretion;
• Have non-profit governance experience and / or solid understanding of the non-profit sector in Québec;
• Have proficiency in English or French, with conversational level in both;
• Have solid grounding in anti-racism and anti-oppression;
• Have strong relational skills: communication, conflict de-escalation and resolution, consensus-building, ability to work in a highly collaborative environment
• Have time to give (initially around 10 hours per month)

We are currently also interested in candidates with skills and experience in the following areas:

• Fundraising and / or Financial Management
• Human resources: labour relations and performance management
• Policy development
• Advocacy and community mobilization
• Legal: migrant and refugee rights, non-profit law, labour
• Facilities management, occupational health and safety

Additional assets (any of the following assets would be supportive to AGIR, but are not a requirement):

• Experience in migrant and / or refugee support;
• Experience and skills with organizational development, organizational restructuring, change management processes, or big picture / systems thinking;
• Experience in service- or care-provision roles or contexts (e.g. health and social services, intervention work, education and facilitation, etc.)
• Experience working in an anti-oppressive group context (e.g. anti-racist, decolonial, queer and trans inclusive, disability justice, feminist approaches);
• Strong community/personal or professional connections to groups and individuals that align with the mission and values of AGIR;

By-and-for

Accordingly with the organization’s history and by-and-for approach, AGIR strongly encourages LGBTQ+ migrants and refugees to apply. AGIR further values the contribution of those deeply committed to the organization’s mission, including non-LGBTQ+ migrants and refugees who also might be Indigenous, Black, or racialized; women and all those marginalized on the basis of gender and sexual identity; people with disabilities; non-migrant 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, etc.

How do I become an AGIR Board member?

1. Please complete this expression of interest form by or before March 20th, 2026
   1. Should you have any questions or needs related to the application, you can contact Anna Malla from Saltwater Learning and Consulting Group, who is supporting our recruitment process anna@saltwaterconsulting.net
2. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for a brief virtual interview to take place between April 6th - April 12th, 2026
3. Selected candidates will be invited to their first board meeting between April 20th - May 3rd, 2026
4. Following initial onboarding and training, selected candidates will be invited to AGIR’s AGM in June 2026, to be formally elected by the membership