As Straight Finance Walks, Gay Money Talks

Companies should be concentrating their efforts to target gay and lesbian consumers following new findings from the Gaydar Spending and Lifestyle Survey.

The company has found the GLBT consumer sector has been largely unaffected by the encroaching credit crunch providing a valuable source of revenue for companies. Almost 50% of the people gay people surveyed said the weak economy was nowhere to been seen on their financial radar.

Some 81% of GLBT people have credit cards and they hold an average of 3.12 cards each. Of those, 52.1% pay back the balance in full each month.

The report also found that gay and lesbian consumers are not using their cards just to keep financially afloat. Some 51.6% are still spending on holidays, 47.5% on clothes and 62.3% are internet shoppers (excluding groceries).

A Boardroom Revolution: It Pays to be Gay

When Angela Mason began her 10-year directorship of the Stonewall gay lobby group in 1992, she had a friend in the corporate world who had two phones in his house. One he used to take personal calls for him and his partner. The other was for the office. When it came to being out and proud in the workplace, few and far between was the employee who would happily step out of the closet and declare: “I’m gay, let’s do business.”

“People used to genuinely fear that they would lose their jobs if they were outed, and many did,” Mason remembers. “If you were found out it was absolutely the end.”

It was with some sense of satisfaction, therefore, that Ms Mason read the news this week that MI5 was finally going to step out of the closet itself and begin openly recruiting people from within the gay community.

One of the last bastions of the British establishment, a place that, until the early 1990s, had actually banned hiring gays because of fears that outed spies could be blackmailed, had finally capitulated and realised that if you want to hire the best talent, you have to look at all sections of society. The days of the Oxbridge don giving white, male graduates a tap on the shoulder and a nod towards Thames House were truly over.

The domestic intelligence service is now not only going to start actively employing openly gay recruits, it is also hiring Stonewall (a group once associated with, and run by, former radicals such as Ms Mason) to advise the security services on how to encourage its spies to be more open about their sexuality and how to persuade more gay applicants to apply for jobs there.

Get the rest of the story from independent.co.uk.

Research Shows Marking to GLBT Community Pays

According to American Demographics Magazine, the aggregate spending power of the gay and lesbian community nationally is $515 billion per annum. Meanwhile, Forrester Research says that the average annual household income of gay households in America is $61,300, compared with $56,900 for heterosexual households. This becomes especially important when considering members of the community’s ability to afford rent payments.

 

But marketing to the gay populace requires an understanding of how to speak respectfully to them, according to Justin Nelson, president and co-founder of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. For instance, he says you should use buzzwords like “partner” instead of “husband” or “wife,” and that your property is “all-family friendly.”

Read more at heraldtribune.com.

GLBT Community Can Now Get A Piece Of The Rock

Prudential Financial’s Group Insurance business announced it will launch a marketing program designed to sell Prudential’s Long-Term Care Insurance product to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. The Human Rights Campaign is the first LGBT organization that has agreed to participate in the program. “Prudential has a solid record of sponsorship support to LGBT community organizations, including HRC. But we’re also committed to ensuring that the LGBT community’s unique long-term care needs and the various options available to them are understood,” said Eric Holtzman, vice president of Long-Term Care Insurance for Prudential.

Money In The Bank - Gay Weddings Welcome

“Massachusetts does indeed lure couples from other states, as well as other countries, for their nuptials. I have been fortunate to officiate over the ceremonies of couples from across the nation and as far away as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Holland whose wish was to get married in Massachusetts.

No, they were not same-sex couples, because I have had to inform them that their marriage would not be recognized by their state or country upon their return home. I felt as if I had discriminated against their rights when I had to inform them of this.”

Read the rest of the story at the bostonglobe.com.