24 Million LGBTQIA+ U.S. consumers want to support friendly businesses like yours. We help them find you.
If you want to increase your company’s profits and improve LGBTQIA+ equality, health, and happiness, your solution is GREATER, our nonprofit, social, business directory app. >
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- 24 Million LGBTQIA+ consumers in the USA.
- 92% Think it’s important to support queer-friendly businesses.
- $1.4 Trillion in buying power.
- 6,000+ Businesses already listed on GREATER.
- GREATER app created by QWELL Community Foundation, a 501(c)3 charity serving the nation’s 3rd largest openly LGBTQIA+ population in Greater Austin, Texas.
GREATER LAUNCHES IN JANUARY 2024
Join by Dec. 31, 2023 to SAVE BIG!
SPECIAL NOTICE
We are alarmed by the recent Supreme Court decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis that allows businesses to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ customers.
While we wholeheartedly support our nonprofit partners’ work to engrain LGBTQIA+ protections in law, QWELL’s solution is to direct all LGBTQIA+ spending to LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses like yours!
GREATER is good for you.
Great for growing B2C or B2B companies.
Leverage your existing coupon or loyalty program.
See immediate ROI with increased customer visits.
Works for Brick-and-Mortar or Online Businesses.
Security measures to protect your business and employees.
Works with your LGBTQIA+ Chamber of Commerce Membership.
Get public credit for every LGBTQIA+ donation your company makes.
Choose to drive customer visits or increase awareness of your brand.
Your membership dues support QWELL’s LGBTQIA+ population health research.
Track LGBTQIA+ visits and sales driven by our GREATER app.
Measure customer satisfaction with GREATER reviews.
Save yourself time – Let GREATER do all the work!
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What We Do
GREATER fulfills the LGBTQIA+ community’s long-standing promise to support the businesses that have our back.
We won’t stand idly by while beloved LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses struggle or close their doors. QWELL made GREATER to drive LGBTQIA+ and Ally consumers to businesses like yours. We’re doing our part to make sure that LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses thrive.
02
Our Approach
92% of LGBTQIA+ people say it’s important to spend their money with businesses that support our community.
Finding those businesses in any neighborhood is easy with QWELL Community Foundation’s GREATER app. Users add businesses, healthcare providers, and other resources they personally know are LGBTQIA+ friendly so that other users can search for them anonymously.
Your GREATER business listing even shows all the ways you support LGBTQIA+ causes, organizations, and employees. You get public credit for walking your talk as an LGBTQIA+ friendly business.
Our Mission
For QWELL Community Foundation to succeed in its mission to cultivate a queer culture of health and self-actualization, we need to engage every LGBTQIA+ person and connect each of them with whatever resources they need to improve their wellbeing as they see fit, like healthcare services, affirming employers, or restaurants where LGBTQIA+ people like them are hanging out. To make every LGBTQIA+ user comfortable, app users stay completely anonymous.
With your support, our nonprofit GREATER app will be the world’s most powerful resource referral engine for LGBTQIA+ people.
About
QWELL x GREATER
QWELL Community Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in Austin, Texas, that works to maximize LGBTQIA+ health and happiness. QWELL is building LGBTQIA+ community centers with affordable housing. QWELL assembled the world’s first cohort of health systems to get LGBTQIA+ certified together (2023), representing more than 70 clinics. QWELL’s FreePrideFlag.com program has distributed 5,000 free rainbow flags in Central Texas and will expand nationwide.
QWELL’s app, GREATER, anonymously connects LGBTQIA+ people with the businesses, healthcare, and resources that support us. The app also houses our queer wellbeing research study and provides local data about how local LGBTQIA+ communities are doing wherever the app is used.
The GREATER app launch event with young adults, PRIDE SCOUTS COLLEGE CONTEST, is funded with a seed grant from:
Lady Gaga’s BORN THIS WAY FOUNDATION.
Choose the promotional path that fits your business:
DRIVE CUSTOMER VISITS
Perfect for businesses serving the public directly, like shops, restaurants, healthcare, and services.
BRAND AWARENESS
Be recognized as an LGBTQIA+ friendly business even if the public never needs to cross your threshold.
For businesses of all sizes.
Find passionate customers.
GREATER rewards app users for identifying and supporting queer-friendly businesses like yours. Once you become our partner, we’ll continually drive new customers to you from our app, website, and other channels. For businesses of all sizes.
Our GREATER app offers users rewards for:
- Frequenting your LGBTQIA+ friendly business;
- Reporting their spending at your business;
- Volunteering and engaging in health-promoting behaviors!
Your membership dues support our LGBTQIA+ population health research.
Nonprofit organizations and local governments across the country need reliable data about how their local LGBTQIA+ communities are doing so that they can formulate effective services and programming, write winning grants, and measure their success in improving queer wellbeing.
QWELL Community Foundation, the nonprofit behind the GREATER APP, knows data.
Since 2018, QWELL has conducted the annual, anonymous Queer Wellbeing Study in collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, to track the health of the nation’s third largest openly LGBTQIA+ population here in Greater Austin, Texas.
With our GREATER app, QWELL’s data collection expands to anywhere the app is used, generating actionable information that we then share for FREE with qualified nonprofit partners nationwide.
Extra perks for you.
When you invest a fraction of your marketing budget in sponsoring GREATER, you can:
- Control the text, images, and details of your LGBTQIA+ friendly business listing.
- Include a link to your job openings.
- Access the forthcoming donor-matching portal that makes it easy for you to get public credit on your business listing for everything you do for LGBTQIA+ community organizations in your area, like monetary or product donations and employee volunteering.
- Easily participate in QWELL’s FreePrideFlag.com giveaway!
GREATER employee engagement.
50% of LGBTQIA+ employees report that they are not open about being LGBTQIA+ to their current supervisor. One-quarter (1/4) are not out to any of their co-workers. (Williams Institute, 2023)
Your LGBTQIA+ employees can use QWELL’s anonymous GREATER app to verify your company as their employer when they report to the community about how fabulous you are.
Then you will be able to use our business portal to discreetly communicate with your LGBTQIA+ employees – whether they’re out at work or not. You can use this tool to collect employee feedback about donations to LGBTQIA+ causes, your company environment, or to grow your Employee Resource Group.
Join GREATER now to support our nonprofit app for LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses and lock in your low pre-launch membership rate for a YEAR!
List your business on GREATER during our pre-launch period (by Dec. 31, 2023), and your membership dues are only $99 per location for all of 2024.
That’s 11 months free!
GREATER is what GREATER does.
What you’ll get:
New customers.
We refer LGBTQIA+ customers to GREATER businesses via integrated marketing campaigns and our social directory app.
Discreet public recognition.
Your LGBTQIA+ customers can easily see everything you do to support their health and happiness, like donating and volunteering, right on your GREATER listing.
Increase your share of customer.
You have the option to offer coupons or rewards to GREATER users to bring them back to your business again-and-again.
Easy business insights.
Receive regular reports from GREATER showing how many customers we’ve sent you, how much they spent, and how great their experience was at your business.
Improve customer experience.
Get access to employee trainings, HR templates, and more to become fully welcoming to LGBTQIA+ customers and employees.
Do more good.
Use GREATER’s cause-matching interface to help meet the real needs of LGBTQIA+ community organizations in your neighborhood.
Focused customer attention.
App users will choose your GREATER business over your competitors that aren’t listed and recommend your business to their social networks.
BE the good news.
Inspire other businesses with stories about your special events, donations, and volunteering benefitting LGBTQIA+ community organizations in our business newsletter.
Join GREATER by Dec. 31, 2023 to lock in these pre-launch rates.
Nonprofit organizations click here. Faith communities click here.
Want to sign up but need to donate later? Click the “Make a Pledge” box!
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should I join GREATER now before the app is launched?
If you join during our pre-launch event, you can SAVE BIG! Choose from:
- Lock in our lowest membership rate for a YEAR!
OR - Pay your membership dues once and then NEVER AGAIN!
Most importantly, your membership fees and donations are vital to help QWELL Community Foundation complete and continue adding features to the app to make LGBTQIA+ communities everywhere stronger, healthier, and more connected.
Also, potential major donors tell us they want proof that LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses will use GREATER, and by joining during our pre-launch event, you prove our case!
What is different about QWELL’s GREATER app?
Forget the yellow pages, this app is GREATER! QWELL’s app uses network effects to keep users engaged and grow your customer base.
The internet holds a vast number of lists of LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses – nonprofit donors, LGBTQIA+ Chambers of Commerce members, and yellow pages sites – but these lists are barely used by community members looking for products or services.
The number one way LGBTQIA+ people find friendly businesses is word-of-mouth. QWELL’s GREATER app keeps those ephemeral referrals from disappearing so the next LGBTQIA+ person with the same question can easily find the information.
Our app applies the best practices of for-profit companies like Uber to meet our community’s need to identify and support LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses.
Users will have both an emotional and a financial stake in the success of our GREATER app as they use the app to make friends, find favorite businesses, healthcare providers, products, and services, while they earn rewards.
Unlike the yellow pages, which people put away until they need to search again, most GREATER users will use our app every day to keep earning points and rewards!
Our GREATER app also serves QWELL’s mission to cultivate an LGBTQIA+ culture of health and self-actualization by rewarding healthy and prosocial behaviors. App users will also earn points and rewards for completing QWELL’s Queer Wellbeing Survey that tracks population health. (This data will be available to QWELL’s nonprofit partners everywhere the app is used.) Eventually, the app will allow us to push interventions to individual users who want help achieving their wellbeing goals.
What is the audience for QWELL’s GREATER app?
- LGBTQIA+ people and anyone who supports us will want to get GREATER
- Approximately 7.2% of adult Americans (23,896,800) identify as LGBTQIA+. (Gallup)
- Greater Austin, where QWELL is based, has the nation’s third largest openly LGBTQIA+ population, per capita. (Gallup)
- 21% of Gen Z and 10.5% of Millennials identify as LGBTQIA+. (Gallup)
- Only 50% of Gen Z identify as strictly heterosexual. (MTV, GLAAD)
- LGBTQIA+ job seekers will use GREATER to find friendly employers in their neighborhoods and industries.
- Allies are welcome to get GREATER, too! Our friends and families can be a huge help connecting LGBTQIA+ people with friendly businesses, employers, and resources.
- GREATER has more than 6,000 businesses already listed. Claim your listing today!
How will my business benefit from joining QWELL's GREATER app?
- Your listing will stand out with a special mark as a verified community supporter.
- Your business will appear above unclaimed listings in search results.
- Your business listing can link to your job postings, helping you attract more diverse employees.
- You can manage your listing content, including text, photos, and contact information.
- You will receive regular reports about user visits and spending at your business.
- You will be able to offer rewards to app users, driving them to your business locations or letting them experience your products or services.
- Your LGBTQIA+ employees can anonymously identify as part of your company, giving you a clearer picture of your diversity. Planned features will allow you to message these employees, as well, including collecting their input on corporate giving opportunities.
- You will receive early access to new features, like GREATER’s forthcoming donor-matching system to help you find LGBTQIA+ nonprofits with which to partner to increase your impact on the causes that matter to you. (We can’t give away all our future features, yet, but trust us, you’ll be happy!)
By joining GREATER by December 31, 2023, you will lock in our lowest membership rate for 2024! GET STARTED NOW AND GET 11 MONTHS FREE!
Can I be listed on QWELL’s GREATER app as an individual within a larger business?
If you are a commissioned employee, you can create your own listing on GREATER to attract LGBTQIA+ customers so they know exactly who to ask for at your LGBTQIA+ friendly business! (Also, this way you can be listed whether or not your company is willing to register as LGBTQIA+ friendly.)
This option is great for (among others):
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- Realtors
- Auto Salespeople
- Furniture Salespeople
- Ad Sales Representatives
- Financial Advisors
- Travel Agents
- Insurance Agents
- Brokers
- Sales Engineers
- And More!
What is the cost to list my company on QWELL’s GREATER app?
To claim your membership during this special pre-launch period, you only have to make a donation of $99 per location by Dec. 31, 2023.
After that, business circle membership dues will be 29-$99 per month depending on the number of locations you want listed in the app.
Join GREATER now!
What if my company has multiple locations?
No problem! You can upload a spreadsheet with information about each of your business locations so that each location can be easily found by LGBTQIA+ people nearby.
Are all your locations listed on your website? Send us the link and let us grab the info for you!
Also, you can assign location listings to specific employees (e.g. the General Manager at each location).
What security measures are in place to keep my business safe?
We know that not everyone has the privilege of operating an LGBTQIA+ friendly business in an area in which it is safe for their support to be broadly known.
QWELL’s GREATER app will grow from trusted-person-to-trusted-person using invite codes. These codes prevent bad actors from using our GREATER app to learn which businesses, faith communities, and other resources are LGBTQIA+ friendly.
Do nonprofits have to pay to be listed on QWELL’s GREATER app?
We welcome all our LGBTQIA+ friendly nonprofit partners free of charge. Visit our GREATER Nonprofit Signup Page.
What if my LGBTQIA+ friendly business cannot afford the membership fee but we want to claim our listing?
QWELL is committed to helping individual proprietors and other small businesses. Our app was inspired in part by the shuttering of some beloved LGBTQIA+ owned businesses here in Austin, Texas, so we want to help business owners who are struggling, too.
We are already members of an LGBTQIA+ Chamber of Commerce. Why do we still need to join GREATER?
We love our LGBTQIA+ Chambers of Commerce! They are fantastic resources and community advocates. They deserve your support! (Click here to find your nearest LGBTQIA+ Chamber.)
At the same time, most towns do not have such a Chamber and, even in those that do, LGBTQIA+ community members rarely look at their directories. If your Chamber membership brings you business, you may never know.
QWELL’s GREATER app, on the other hand, is designed to drive LGBTQIA+ customers (and job applicants) to queer-friendly businesses like yours!
With GREATER, you’ll know how much of your revenue comes from LGBTQIA+ consumers and how your traffic increases when you’re fully recognized as an LGBTQIA+ friendly business.
You’ll also get public credit on GREATER for supporting any participating LGBTQIA+ nonprofit organization, including your local LGBTQIA+ Chamber, as well as being recognized as a supporter of QWELL Community Foundation for donating your membership dues.
What does LGBTQIA+ stand for?
LGBTQIA+ is an acronym that brings together many different gender and sexual identities that often face marginalization across society. The acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and the + holds space for the expanding and new understanding of different parts of humankind’s very diverse gender and sexual identities, like two-spirit, non-binary, pansexual, and more.