Pride Month is upon us! Pride honors the Stonewall Uprising in June 1969, a tipping point in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Since then, Pride has evolved from a march into a month dedicated to empowering LGBTQ+ people and supporting their right to exist as they are.
To celebrate Pride, we asked our customers and other experts for tips on how to support the LGBTQ+ community, within and beyond your business, in June and year-round.
1. Ask yourself: how can my business use its time, money, and/or voice?
“Some small businesses give us $200 a year, and that goes a long way,” explains Jordan Sgro, Executive Director at Encircle, a BILL customer and nonprofit that provides essential services to LGBTQ+ youth. “Some give us $20,000. Also, incredible. Some volunteer. And some can't do any of that, and they spread the message of loving queer youth, and make sure the people who work for them feel included.” No contribution is too small—each has an impact.
If you’re not sure how your small business can support the LGBTQ+ community, Sgro suggests zeroing in on the categories the above contributions fall into: “I always tell businesses to ask themselves, ‘How can I use my time, my money, and my voice?’”
2. Hire LGBTQ+ employees
“Having LGBTQ+ representation in the employee headcount, especially in leadership positions, really helps potential employees, customers, and clients see that you’re not just saying ‘we accept everybody,’” says Sarah Scala, founder of Sarah Scala Consulting, which provides LGBTQ+ leadership coaching and other solutions to support a diverse workforce. “You’re walking the walk.”
3. Use inclusive language
Pay attention to ways in which your day-to-day interactions might exclude LGBTQ+ people. “For example, quite often we default to opening meetings with, ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,’” says Susie Silver, Senior Consultant and LGBTQ+ Inclusion Subject Matter Expert at the Diversity Movement, a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) educational technology company. “That has excluded everybody else other than binary identities. So how could you swap that out? ‘Good morning team.’ ‘Hello folks.’”
Likewise, look for opportunities to use more inclusive terms in your employee handbook and other communications—say, by swapping “maternity/paternity leave” for “parental leave/caregiver.”
4. Suggest sharing pronouns—and respect them
Providing the option to share pronouns, and respecting them, is a key step toward including LGBTQ+ employees and customers, as well as normalizing gender identity and sexual orientation. Explaining your intentions can maximize this impact. “Educate your employees, and even your clients and communities, about why you’re stating your pronouns,” says Alex Suggs, Co-Founder and Partner at DEI consulting company Different. (Silver says to recommend, not mandate, pronoun sharing to avoid forcing employees to out themselves.)
5. Implement inclusive employee policies and benefits
To help ensure your employee policies and benefits include LGBTQ+ folks, the consultants we interviewed encourage finding out whether:
- LGBTQ+ employees qualify for shared insurance benefits, even if they aren’t married to their partners
- Insurance benefits cover gender affirming healthcare for transgender employees and their children
- Parental leave policies extend to all genders and ways of having a family, such as adoption and fertility support
- Bereavement policies include the death of more than just historically defined immediate family. LGBTQ+ people often have chosen family, especially if their immediate family has rejected them.
“That said, those more comprehensive insurance policies can cost more money,” Scala acknowledges, which means your business finances might influence the extent to which you can offer them.
6. Educate employees about LGBTQ+ inclusion
“Bring in an expert who specializes in workplace LGBTQ+ inclusion, who really understands how to tie LGBTQ+ inclusion to everyday workplace practices.” Silver says. “Ask them to host a training session, as well as review policies, the employee handbook, etc.” If you don’t have the financial resources to partner with an expert, she recommends the Safe Zone’s free ally training resources as an educational option.
7. Involve LGBTQ+ community members in your allyship efforts
“It’s really important that if organizations want to take on more of this work to support the LGBTQ+ community, that they involve LGBTQ+ folks in the process,” Suggs notes. “Sometimes you can have missteps that harm the community because you didn't involve them from the start.” Include them in the development of your marketing materials. Possible collaborations could include individual contributors, employee resource groups, and community partners, Silver says.
8. Build gender inclusivity into in-person environments
Find opportunities to make offices, retail spaces, and other in-person environments more inclusive. Consider gender neutral restrooms or clothing sections that don’t follow the gender binary (i.e., men’s and women’s sections), Suggs says. These gestures can add up. “Going to the airports, I always look for a gender neutral restroom, and I'm like, this is great that they have one,” they explain. “It immediately makes me feel seen and valued. Little moments like that are affirming to your customer base that, hey, you're welcome here, you're seen here.”
9. Partner with LGBTQ+-owned businesses—and think outside the box
Scala recommends partnering with suppliers that have received LGBT Enterprise Business Certification from the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Also, "think about how you can partner more with LGBTQ+ businesses and organizations, beyond the usual go-to’s,” Suggs recommends. If you want to invite a speaker to discuss mental health or some other timely topic, for example, they suggest considering whether you can bring in an LGBTQ+ speaker.
10. Maintain relationships with the LGBTQ+ community year-round
“During Pride, there’s a lot of attention on LGBTQ+ nonprofits and small businesses,” says Steve Cruz, Strategic Giving Manager at the Ali Forney Center, a BILL customer and nonprofit that empowers homeless LGBTQ+ youth in New York. “But we’re queer 24/7/365, and organizations like ours need support year-round. It’s important for allies to remember what it means to make those connections during Pride and maintain them.”
Get creative. Encourage your employees and customers to buy their holiday gifts from an LGBTQ+-owned business, or more, Cruz suggests. Or take a cue from Scala’s clients, and find ways to uplift the queer community during celebrations of other groups many of them also belong to, such as Women’s History Month.
Authentic support of the LGBTQ+ community starts internally
However you choose to support the LGBTQ+ community, start within your own company, which can help ensure your external efforts are authentic, according to Silver. "Create the inclusion, community, and safety internally, and then go externally," she explains.
“Given the recent rise in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, it's important for companies to communicate their support for the LGBTQ+ community in ways that go beyond words, ensuring that discrimination towards any LGBTQ+ employees won't be tolerated,” adds Cindy Owyoung, Vice President of DEI at BILL. That might mean including gender identity in anti-harassment policies and/or swiftly addressing anti-LGBTQ+ harassment from employees or customers.
Owyoung also suggests providing employees with safe spaces to express their needs for support. “You could provide an open forum discussion during Pride Month on issues that LGBTQ+ employees are concerned about, or form an employee resource group dedicated to supporting your LGBTQ+ employees as part of a broader DEI strategy,” she points out.
At BILL, we believe everyone should be able to show up as their authentic selves. To find out how to join BILL—which offers a diversity of employee resource groups, including our LGBTQ+ group, PRISM—check out our current job openings!
