The Outwords Archive (OUTWORDS) announced today that founder and executive director Mason Funk will step down in Spring 2026 to make way for new leadership as the organization enters its second decade. OUTWORDS’ board of directors will conduct a national search for the organization’s next executive director beginning in Fall 2025, with the new leader expected to assume their duties by April 2026. 

Over the past nine years, Funk has established OUTWORDS as the first and only national non-profit dedicated to sharing the stories of LGBTQ+ elders. Today, OUTWORDS is widely respected as an integral part of the broader U.S. LGBTQ+ community, and recognized as one of the key pillars in the queer community’s long term growth and vitality. 

About his departure, Funk said, “It has been the privilege of a lifetime to create OUTWORDS from scratch, to interview nearly 400 queer elders representing the full diversity of the American LGBTQ+ community, to receive the guidance and support of countless non–profit colleagues both inside and outside the LGBTQ+ community, to collaborate with OUTWORDS’ talented and hardworking board of directors, and to work side by side with OUTWORDS’ brilliant, dedicated staff.” 

Funk continued, “As the son of a journalist and a historian, I’m particularly proud of OUTWORDS’ role in elevating stories and testimonies that are all too often overlooked, undervalued, and simply erased, including people of color, trans and gender non-conforming people, low-income people, people in rural areas, disabled folks, and others. It didn’t just take a village to build our community; it took a nation of creative, resilient, compassionate rebels, each contributing their own part, working together, sometimes disagreeing, but never relinquishing their deep belief that our experiences matter. Today more than ever, our world needs the experiences and role models of queer elders to help us navigate these challenging times. I move on from my post as OUTWORDS’ founder and first executive director with some sadness, because the work has been so exhilarating, but also with confidence and excitement to see how our staff, board, and new executive director will elevate OUTWORDS into new realms of storytelling and deep listening, of building bridges across our society, and of bold leadership for the LGBTQ+ community.” 

Commenting on Funk’s retirement, OUTWORDS Board Chair Scott Galea said, “Working with OUTWORDS’ founding executive director Mason Funk has been an incredible honor. His clear-eyed, passionate leadership will be deeply missed by the entire organization. The board and I profoundly respect Mason’s decision to step aside on the organization’s 10th anniversary, creating space for new leadership. Mason has done an amazing job preparing the board and staff for this transition and I can’t wait to see where we will go together.” 

Over the past nine years, OUTWORDS has built partnerships with dozens of influential national non- and for-profit organizations including SAGE, AARP, the One Institute, the LA LGBT Center, AIDS/LifeCycle, Equality Fashion Week, Microsoft, Google, the Association of California School Administrators, the Digital Transgender Archive, and many others. OUTWORDS’s work has been underwritten by more than 600 individual donors as well as a range of private and governmental entities including the Mellon Foundation, Gilead Pharmaceuticals, the California State Library, the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, and others. Through its proprietary digital archive as well as social media channels and dozens of online and in-person events, OUTWORDS videos have been seen more than six million times. The most common age range visiting the OUTWORDS digital archive is 18-24 year olds, direct evidence of the power and relevance of the organization’s work for the generations tasked with resolving our world’s most pressing issues. 

STATEMENTS FROM COLLEAGUES 

OUTWORDS Board Chair Emeritus Richard Tate, who led OUTWORDS through its first seven years and currently serves as CEO of the California Wellness Foundation, shared, “When Mason asked me to help launch OUTWORDS, I was all in. I yearned for role models as a mixed-race gay kid growing up in Oklahoma in the ’80s, and I knew the stories of queer elders could provide hope and inspiration for young people and social justice advocates alike. At a time when LGBTQ+ people are facing erasure and targeted attacks, Mason has positioned OUTWORDS to be a resource for the entire LGBTQ+ community in the coming decades – not only for preservation, but for power. I look forward to welcoming new leadership to move OUTWORDS further into this vision for the future.” 

“A couple of times a generation, a new organization arises that is exactly what the movement needs at that particular moment,” said Mandy Carter, National Black Justice Coalition co-founder and national co-chair of the 2008 Obama campaign, whose story was recorded by OUTWORDS in 2021. “OUTWORDS is one of those organizations. It’s a radically simple idea, brilliantly executed: record the testimonials of the LGBTQ+ community’s early generations, and serve those stories back to the community like a great harvest feast. I was honored to share my story with OUTWORDS. It will be around long after I’m gone, and that gives me great satisfaction.” 

“I’ve been fighting for the rights of LGBTQ+ people my entire professional life,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR). “Clearly, we need to be in American courtrooms and legislatures. But, we also need our stories. We need our history. The world can take away every right and protection we possess – but thanks in large measure to OUTWORDS, it will never, ever be able to erase us. Congratulations and thank you to Mason for a job well done.” 

“As former chair of the American Society on Aging, I can’t overstate the importance of OUTWORDS,” said Michael Adams, CEO of SAGE, the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ+ older people. “OUTWORDS’ spirit and values directly complement those of SAGE. On a practical level, SAGE has used OUTWORDS videos to train caregivers for LGBTQ+ elders. As our entire community ages, OUTWORDS is and will be an essential pillar to ensure that queer elders are celebrated, respected, and supported as they deserve to be.” 

“I was honored when OUTWORDS asked me a few years ago to conduct interviews with trans legends,” said award-winner film director and artist Zackary Drucker. “OUTWORDS’ commitment to uplifting the complex and rich spectacle of queer history – through the stories and voices of our founding elders – positions it perfectly to continue serving our community in the coming years and decades as we confront and beat back a slew of new challenges. Thank you OUTWORDS, and good luck Mason on your next adventure!” 

OUTWORDS records, preserves, and shares the stories of LGBTQ+ elders, to build community and catalyze social change. In particular, OUTWORDS focuses on transferring queer elders’ wisdom, experience, and inspiration to current and future generations of change makers within and beyond the LGBTQ+ community, and providing living proof to queer and trans youth that long, productive, and fulfilling lives are possible for them, even in challenging times. For more information, visit theoutwordsarchive.org.