Today, the logo on our website and in the email signatures of many Dealerware employees changed. Our normal blues have been replaced by the familiar rainbow-colored flag that represents the LGBTQIA+ community. You may be less familiar with the other array of colors, arranged as an arrow on the left side of that flag – these represent Black and Indigenous peoples, and all People of Color (BIPOC).
But simply changing the colors of our logo is not our only plan for demonstrating our support for our friends in the LGBTQIA+ community. Over a period of many months, Dealerware has created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council with the help of outside experts, which works to identify ways our company can improve and ways we can act in support of our employees, our customers and our partners.
In sharing our plans for Pride month, celebrated throughout June, we hope we can encourage others – both individuals and organizations – to take their own steps to understand and celebrate people who identify as members of LGBTQIA+ communities.
Our company will host an internal donation drive for organizations that support the LGBTQIA+ community. In our hometown of Austin, we aim to support Out Youth, an organization that provides young people in the LGBTQIA+ community with a safe space. We will also promote the work of The Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to the LGBTQIA+ community. Finally, we’ll institute options for our employees to donate to these organizations and the Human Rights Campaign through Bonusly, the tool we use to celebrate one another, give gifts and make donations to many causes that our employees value.
Our allyship with the LGBTQIA+ community will also include fun opportunities for everyone in our organization to learn. Internally we’ll host an LGBTQIA+ Trivia Happy Hour, and a documentary screening and discussion night with our DEI council.
Later in the month, we’ll again celebrate Juneteenth as a company, a tradition we instituted in 2020. Juneteenth is its own milestone moment during which we reflect on, act in support of, and celebrate equality among all people. In the coming weeks we will share more on our plans for the holiday, so that our readers can again consider using some of our ideas or instituting their own plans to celebrate and support members of BIPOC communities.
We are a company with nearly 150 individuals who each care for and respect one another. We hope that by sharing the many ways we’re working to make a real impact in support of LGBTQIA+ people – in our company, in our local communities, in our country and around the world – we can inspire action, inclusivity, respect and Pride.
Thank you for reading! If you’d like to donate to the organizations that Dealerware will support through Pride month, use the links below to navigate to their websites.
Out Youth Direct Donation Link
