William Waybourn was a founding member of many early Dallas-area LGBT organizations. Waybourn was an early Dallas Gay Alliance member, serving as president from 1986-1990. From 1983-1990, he served as president of the Foundation for Human Understanding, an organization that helped develop the AIDS Resource Center. Waybourn helped found Crossroads Market along with Bill Nelson, Terry Tebedo and Craig Spaulding in 1980, creating the first gay community center in the Dallas area. The market provided assistance to individuals impacted by the AIDS virus and served as a meeting place for these groups during the early days before official buildings were made available.

Waybourn worked with Kim Dawson to raise the funds necessary to establish the AIDS Resource Center in 1983. A check was presented to him by Morgan Fairchild and Faye Dunaway from Lucy Crow Billingsley through an event called “Fabulous Faces & Fashion for AIDS.”

After Ann Richards’ campaign for governor, William Waybourn recognized the effectiveness of her fundraising efforts and utilized similar methods when he founded the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund along with Vic Basile in 1991. Waybourn served as the group’s first executive director, helping gay and lesbian candidates get elected into political office through the group’s fundraising efforts and advocacy.

Waybourn was also hired on as the director of GLAAD through his involvement with Window media, a subsidiary of Widmeyer, a Washington-based corporation. Through this group, Waybourn directed operations of the Washington Blade, an LGBT newspaper.

William Waybourn moved from Dallas to Washington in the early 1990s to work with GLAAD and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.