PIOW is proud to introduce My LGBTQ+ Colleague, a social media campaign celebrating the everyday actions of LGBTQ+ professionals and the workplaces that support them.
While we love celebrating Pride loudly, this series invites individuals to shine a light on the strengths and contributions of their peers – those that may go unnoticed, but do make a meaningful impact.
About the Campaign
In today’s workplace — especially during Pride season — we see the lines between authentic and performative allyship blur. We celebrate LGBTQ+ professionals as sensational, but take pause when we see members of our community sensationalized.
This Pride, we invite you to join us in celebrating the everyday value that LGBTQ+ colleagues and affirming workplaces add to our lives year-round.
What This Looks Like…
The PIOW team created a collection of premade graphics and customizable templates to encourage LGBTQ+ individuals, allies, and companies to share their ‘My LGBTQ+ Colleague’ shout outs on social media.
Whether you’re interested in sharing as an individual, or as part of a larger ERG or DEI initiative in your company, this campaign is for you.
How to Participate
- Select a graphic from the My LGBTQ+ Colleague gallery below. We’ve divided images into premade, ready-to-share images and blank templates that you can customize with your own message.
- If you’re using a premade graphic, simply download the image and post it to social media with a caption reflecting your experience.
- If you’d like to create your own message, start with one of our blank templates and customize it using your editing software of choice. Similar to our premade graphics, PNG and PDF versions are available. We’ve also created a convenient Canva template for anyone who is already using Canva’s free design software or is interested in creating an account. We encourage co-branding if you’d like to feature your organization’s logo alongside PIOW’s as well.
- Share the post online and add the hashtags #PrideInOurWorkplace and #MyLGBTQColleague so we can see your post!
- Lastly, invite and encourage allies to share. We’d love to see LGBTQ+ professionals participate by recognizing their LGBTQ+ peers, but the real impact will follow when allies reflect on their experiences with the community.
Sample message inviting allies to participate:
Your support means a lot to me. Please take a look at this social media campaign and consider using it to say something about your LGBTQ+ colleagues (or me!). A simple campaign like this written in your voice helps humanize our community.
Thank you for showing up for LGBTQ+ folks this Pride season.
Content Guidelines & Disclaimer
We ask that you in keep the following in mind when drafting and sharing posts. We at PIOW envision a workplace in which:
- LGBTQ+ employees are empowered, not exploited
- Diversity in identity and expression is supported, not suppressed
- Calling allies in can be a more effective path towards progress than shutting them out, and
- LGBTQ+ individuals feel comfortable representing their community, but singular experiences are not considered representative all of LGBTQ+ experience
We hope posts shared through this campaign can reflect this vision as well. We do not condone the use of PIOW templates to call out or shame individuals, communities, or businesses.
Ready-to-Share Graphics
Select from our My LGBTQ+ Colleague and My LGBTQ+ Affirming Workplace collections for a simple sharing experience. Explore the featured images below and continue scrolling for customizable templates.
My LGBTQ+ Colleague
Click an image below to open it as a downloadable file, or view and download all available images as one PDF here.
My LGBTQ-Affirming Workplace
Click an image below to open it as a downloadable file, or view and download all available images as one PDF here.
Customizable Templates
Download a blank template to create a campaign graphic that reflects your experience in the workplace. These following images are downloadable as PNGs, PDFs, and editable templates on Canva.
Share Your Story
Click an image below to open it as a downloadable file, or view and download all available images as one PDF here.
Click here to access and edit these templates in Canva.
Do you want to try designing in Canva, but not sure how? Page 1 of the linked template includes basic instructions to help you get started. Note: PIOW isn’t affiliated with this Canva, but our team uses it regularly to design for our organization.