Tools

In terms of the time commitment, it definitely varies a lot from person to person, and chapter to chapter! We don't have any strict requirements when it comes to what route you decide to take with your chapter, the reach, meetings, recruiting, etc. Since we understand that everyone has different time availabilities, we leave it up to you! All you have to do is report back to PERIOD National by filling out the quarterly surveys letting us know how you're doing, as well as keeping us up to date with contact information changes, responding to all communications from National, etc. You'll be able to read more about this once you've become a chapter! Basically, if you're able to put in 10 hours a week that's amazing. 20? Stellar! 5? Great too! Also, if you're not able to work on your chapter for a couple of months because you're on vacation or just busy, no worries! You'd still have to let us know and fill out the surveys.

We typically recommend that people start a PERIOD chapter and operate it as a “branch” of the pre-existing club or group. Once you apply to become a PERIOD Chapter, your official chapter name will be: PERIOD @ [School name, State], but you can continue to work out of your club! In other words, you can continue to have your typical meetings, but do PERIOD activities through this structure.

There are some school chapters who have trouble getting approved by their administration, so they start a community chapter, and then down the line, when they have a solid structure, and more of a presence in their community they are able to start it in their school. If you are in a school, we do encourage you to make your chapter official in your school, since that way you’ll be able to be involved with your school administration in getting products in your schools, and have more leverage with your school district!

Our three main pillars are service, education and advocacy. Some of our chapters focus on all of these pillars, but usually they have more modest goals and choose to focus on only one. This is totally up to you! Once you are a chapter you will be able to get access to all of the amazing tools that we have in our Activist Launch Pad! This includes educational workshops, policy materials about how to get products in your schools and meet with your state representatives, all the information you need to be able to do service in your community, and more! With that you will be then able to build a strategy for your chapter, and support menstrual equity in your community.

We have lots of international chapters! You will get access to the same tools and resources as any other approved chapter! This includes educational workshops, policy materials about how to get products in schools and meet with US state representatives, information you need to be able to do service in your community, and more! For international chapters, the work you'll do might look a little bit different. Given that PERIOD National is not able to ship menstrual products outside of the continental United States, and also given that the policy materials are currently US-focused, our international chapters a lot of the time need to fully rely on product drives as well as starting partnerships with menstrual product companies that are local to where they are located. Also, in terms of tackling policy in your school/city/state or province/country, we are not going to be able to give you as much support, but you are always welcome to use our materials as a guide on how to get started!

Anyone can receive menstrual products from PERIOD National! Whether you are a PERIOD Chapter, 501c(3) organization / non-profit, or just an individual who would like to help their community, you can request products from the order form!

Please make sure to head over to the service partner form to apply to become a partner!

We supply donated product for free always!

You can find the order form on the Chapter Service page within the LaunchPad. If you aren’t a chapter yet and you’d like to get involved, you could start a chapter!

CURRENTLY PICK UP IS NOT AVAILABLE DUE TO SOCIAL DISTANCING **
Portland partners can schedule a pick-up products at our office at 1801 NW Upshur.

Partners in the continental U.S. who serve people experiencing financial or housing instability can order products! Our Service team works hard to ship as many products as possible everyday from our Portland office.

If you are interested in receiving menstrual cups for distribution to people in need you can apply to become a menstrual cup partner.

We try to fill as many orders as we can, but that our inventory of donated products sometimes gets low. The order form will let you know if we are unable to accept new orders, or you will be informed by service@period.org.

We try get products to you within 2-3 weeks of ordering, but when we receive a large number of orders or inventory is low, that can be delayed. We will let you know via the form or email if we are unable to fill your order within 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, we cannot handle urgent requests. We will be shutting down for three weeks over the holidays, but will resume shipping in late January.

No, we don’t ship outside the continental U.S. The cost of shipping and the carbon load makes it too prohibitive. It is more cost-effective and sustainable to buy products locally. Sometimes, we can ship our products to a staging location in the continental US for nonprofits who serve people outside the US. They will then transport those products themselves to another location, which can make sense from a sustainability standpoint when combined in a larger shipment.

Yes! PERIOD donates menstrual products free of cost to anyone who is serving marginalized communities.