Pride in Business examines the economic life of LGBTIQA+ people, businesses and communities.
An initiative of Just Gold that brings together stories, research, a worldwide resource guide, partnerships and a shop. The stories and research are free to read, with no subscriptions to purchase and no paid placements.
What Pride in Business is
Pride in Business is an initiative of Just Gold on the economic life of LGBTIQA+ people, businesses and communities. It began as the home of a research report and now has four parts.
- Stories and The Briefing: analysis and explainers, published under our editorial principles and sent by email every fortnight.
- Research and Projects: The State of LGBTQ+ Business in Australia, the LGBTIQA+ Advisory Board and a worldwide resource guide.
- Partnerships with research partners, sponsors and employers, each disclosed.
- Merch with Pride, the shop, which will sell products that help fund the work and Pride merchandise for organisations.
Just Gold funds and publishes the stories and research.
What we examine
Alongside the ordinary work of finding customers, paying people and planning what the business can afford next, LGBTIQA+ owners may also have to decide whether being open about who they are belongs in a commercial conversation. Our work asks how those experiences connect with the way organisations buy, invest and offer business support.
Several basic questions remain unanswered in Australia: how many LGBTIQA+ owned businesses there are, what existing data can tell us about them, whether major buyers’ supplier diversity commitments include LGBTIQA+ ownership, and what happens between a published policy and the award of a contract.
Other countries have answered some of them. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and parts of Europe and Asia have chambers that certify LGBTIQA+ owned businesses, and our stories and resource guide follow those systems alongside the Australian one. We cover Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Europe. Pride in Business is published from Australia and has no offices in other countries.
We investigate these questions through original research, regular analysis and practical explainers. The first research project, The State of LGBTQ+ Business in Australia, begins in March 2027. It brings together a review of procurement policies, available business and population data, and interviews with owners and buyers.
We will report what the evidence supports, including findings that complicate our starting assumptions.
Our role
Pride in Business offers no membership, certification, business directory or workplace inclusion program. We examine the economic questions that sit alongside that work and direct readers to the organisations and sources relevant to them, which are listed in our resource guide. The guide lists organisations only, never individual businesses.
Funding and publication
Pride in Business is part of Just Gold’s impact program. Just Gold funds and publishes the work, and no organisation can pay for favourable coverage, for inclusion in the research or for a finding to be removed. The LGBTIQA+ Advisory Board is funded through the Victorian Government’s LGBTIQA+ Organisational Development program.
Merch with Pride, the Pride in Business shop, will sell products whose revenue helps fund Pride in Business and its projects. A purchase is a sale, not a donation, and buying from the shop has no bearing on coverage. Organisations interested in supporting the work can enquire about a partnership, on the same terms.
Research review
The Aurum Foundation is the research review partner and will contribute intersectional analysis. Its role is to examine the research design and interpretation, including how experiences may differ across cultural background, disability, gender, age and location.
Each research publication will identify the review undertaken and who was responsible for it.
Who is building it
Pride in Business is being built by the Just Gold team through its impact program. The research will be co designed with the LGBTIQA+ Advisory Board once it is appointed. Expressions of interest are open.
It draws on Just Gold’s earlier LGBTIQA+ work, including the 2019 Pride Program, Think Pride and the talks published on Think Talks. Read where this work comes from.
