Happy Pride Month! New York City’s 50thannual Pride March celebrated the LGBTQ+ community with over 40,000 marchers and 100 floats, all celebrating this year’s theme, Defiantly Different. The NYC Pride co-chair said the theme was showcasing the power in all the defiantly different LBGT community members. Standing defiantly different in solidarity, we’re showcasing LBGT businesses and owners on today’s show.
According to a National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce report in 2016, only 909 of the nearly 28 million small businesses in the US were certified LGBT Business Enterprises (a.k.a. LGBTBEs). To qualify as a LGBTBE, a business must at least 51% owned, managed or operated by an LGBT person. Even though LGBTBEs make up less than 1% of small businesses,and though almost half of all start-ups don’t make it to 4 years according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, the 909 certified LGBTBEs have been around for an average of 12 years, and at least 15% of these businesses were founded over two decades ago. So why do LGBTBEs find more success, and who’s behind them? Here with me to discuss LBGT business is Senior Vice President of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Jonathan Lovitz. Also, joining is Robert Geller, owner of InstanTek, an LGBT-owned, full-service IT department focused on helping LGBT-owned small businesses.
Jonathan Lovitz of NGLCC
Robert Geller of InstanTek
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