LGBTQ COMMUNITY CENTER SURVEY REPORTS

LGBT Community Center surveys

The 2022 biennial LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report provides a detailed picture of centers’ staff and boards, program priorities, constituencies and services, infrastructure, fundraising, budgets, and technical assistance needs. The 2022 report finds that local community centers serving LGBTQ people provide vital information, education, and health services to over 52,000 people each week.

ABSTRACT

The 2022 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report, prepared jointly by MAP and CenterLink and published every two years, provides an overview of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community centers, including their capacity, their programs and services, the people they serve, and their major challenges and opportunities.

This year, the report surveyed 208 centers located in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and provides a crucial snapshot of the centers that provide vital services, programs and advocacy for LGBTQ people. Among the report’s key findings:

In 2021, LGBTQ community centers collectively served nearly 52,000 people every week—or over 2.7 million people per year—and referred 6,000 people each week to local businesses, agencies, providers, and more.

LGBTQ community centers with paid staff (n=169) provide nearly 3,600 jobs across 39 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

71% of centers say that in the last two years, they have experienced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment
- 56% of centers experienced this online/digitally (e.g., Zoom bombing, social media attacks, etc.)
- 54% of centers experienced this offline (e.g., hate mail, harassing phone calls, vandalism, protests)
- 38% of centers reported both online and offline threats or harassment

More than 9 out of 10 centers engage in advocacy and civic engagement at the local level (95%) and state (91%) level, while just under half of centers (47%) engage in advocacy and civic engagement at the national/federal level.

Among centers that provided information on staff demographics, the majority of all center staff (62%) and all senior staff (51%) are people of color. One-third (33%) of executive directors are people of color, among centers that reported this information.