Organizations & Partners
Why Community Insights?
A Dedicated LGBTQ+ Research Community With Depth, Trust, and Reach
Community Insights brings together the legacy of one of the country’s longest-running dedicated LGBTQ+ research panels, an engaged community of participants, and HRC Foundation’s LGBTQ+ research expertise.
Built on a Trusted Legacy
Community Insights builds on the panel created by Community Marketing & Insights (CMI), a pioneer in LGBTQ+ market research that developed the country's longest-running and largest dedicated LGBTQ+ research panels. HRC Foundation became its steward in 2025 and continues many of the practices that helped CMI build trust with LGBTQ+ participants over decades.
More Than a Survey Panel
Our panelists have chosen to join an ongoing LGBTQ+ research community—not simply to respond to a stream of unrelated paid studies. Their participation reflects an ongoing relationship with research focused on LGBTQ+ lives, experiences, and communities. That relationship supports thoughtful engagement and high-quality participation.
LGBTQ+ Research Expertise
LGBTQ+ research requires more than adding a sexual orientation or gender identity screener to a general-population study. We combine research rigor, cultural expertise, and community knowledge to help partners ask better questions and produce more meaningful insights. That expertise informs everything from how questions are framed to how findings are interpreted and communicated.
Reach Diverse and Specialized LGBTQ+ Audiences
There is no single LGBTQ+ experience—and research that treats LGBTQ+ people as one homogeneous group can miss important differences within our communities.
Community Insights includes LGBTQ+ adults across:
- Sexual orientations and gender identities
- Racial and ethnic backgrounds
- Age groups and generations
- Socioeconomic circumstances
- Regions and geographies across the United States
- Health, family, workplace, and other life experiences
The depth and diversity of our panel allow us to recruit both broad, diverse LGBTQ+ samples and more specialized populations that may be difficult to identify through general-market panels, such as older LGBTQ+ adults, transgender and gender-expansive people, LGBTQ+ people of color, people living in rural or less urban communities, and people with particular health or life experiences—such as current or former PrEP users.
Ways to Work With Community Insights
Community Insights provides research services to corporations, market research firms, nonprofits, foundations, academic institutions, and other organizations seeking credible insights about LGBTQ+ communities. Engagements range from participant recruitment for externally managed studies to custom research. For select mission-aligned projects, HRC Foundation may also collaborate more substantively with organizations through a joint research partnership.
Research Designed Around Your Questions
Work with Community Insights to develop a quantitative research study tailored to your organization’s goals.
We can collaborate on questionnaire development, sampling strategy, fielding, analysis, and interpretation—combining methodological expertise with a deep understanding of LGBTQ+ communities.
Custom research can help organizations:
* Understand consumer attitudes and behavior
* Test messages, concepts, or strategies
* Evaluate workplace or institutional experiences
* Understand community needs and experiences
* Inform programs, services, and policy
Best for: corporations, nonprofits, foundations, and other organizations that need a tailored LGBTQ+ research study—such as understanding customers or communities, assessing needs, informing strategy, or exploring a market.
Get Timely Feedback From LGBTQ+ Adults
For focused questions that do not require a full research study, Instant Insights offers a faster way to gather feedback from LGBTQ+ adults.
Short, mobile-friendly surveys can help organizations understand emerging issues, test communications or concepts, and gather timely community perspectives.
Best for: corporations and organizations that need quick feedback from LGBTQ+ consumers or community members on a focused set of questions, such as messaging, brand perceptions, products, services, emerging issues, or other timely decisions.
Add Your Questions to HRC Foundation Research
Organizations can sponsor proprietary questions in select HRC Foundation topical surveys, giving them the opportunity to gather targeted insights from LGBTQ+ respondents without commissioning a standalone study.
When an organization’s research needs align with an upcoming HRC Foundation survey, sponsors can work with our research team to develop and include questions specific to their priorities. HRC Foundation manages the broader study design, fielding, and data quality, while sponsors receive results from their proprietary questions for their own research and decision-making.
Topical Research Sponsorship can be a cost-effective way to explore issues such as consumer attitudes, health and well-being, workplace experiences, financial security, products and services, or other topics relevant to LGBTQ+ communities.
Best for: corporations and organizations that want proprietary answers to a focused set of questions—such as consumer attitudes, behaviors, preferences, or experiences—and can align those questions with an upcoming HRC Foundation survey rather than commissioning a standalone study.
Reach the LGBTQ+ Participants Your Research Needs
Already have a research team, survey, interview guide, or study platform? Community Insights provides participant recruitment for surveys, focus groups, interviews, and other research activities conducted outside HRC Foundation systems. Recruitment is offered as a paid research service, and projects must provide appropriate compensation or incentives for participating panelists. All projects are subject to our privacy protections, ethical review, and mission-alignment standards.
Recruitment can be structured in different ways depending on the study. For targeted recruitment needs, Community Insights can recruit participants on a contracted cost-per-interview basis. For appropriate academic or nonprofit research, we may also share information about an approved study with a relevant segment of the panel so interested panelists can choose whether to participate.
In either model, Community Insights provides access to an established LGBTQ+ research community rather than identifying LGBTQ+ respondents within a broader general-market panel.
We can work with partners to:
* Assess sample feasibility
* Identify relevant segments of the panel
* Recruit broad or targeted LGBTQ+ samples
* Manage invitations and participant communications
* Support recruitment strategies for specialized or more narrowly defined audiences
Participant contact information is not shared with research partners unless a participant knowingly chooses to provide it as part of an approved research process. Panel participation is voluntary, and identifying information remains protected under Community Insights’ privacy standards.
Community Insights is HRC Foundation’s dedicated channel for external research recruitment. HRC membership and supporter lists are not used to recruit participants for outside research.
Best for: market research firms, corporations, academic researchers, nonprofits, and other organizations that already have a study and research infrastructure in place but need help reaching broad, diverse, or specialized LGBTQ+ participants—including audiences that may be difficult to identify through general-market panels.
Sometimes the Best Fit Is a True Research Partnership
Not every research project is best structured as a traditional fee-for-service engagement. While Community Insights can serve as a recruitment partner or provide full-service research support, we are also open to developing joint research projects with allied nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, foundations, and other mission-aligned partners.
When a project addresses an issue aligned with HRC Foundation’s mission and research priorities, a collaborative partnership may make more sense than simply commissioning Community Insights to field your survey or recruit participants. In these projects, HRC Foundation may take a more substantive role in shaping the research—such as contributing to study design, developing the questionnaire, conducting or supporting analysis, interpreting findings, and helping disseminate the results.
Because these projects are developed collaboratively, they may draw on shared resources, expertise, and organizational contributions rather than following a traditional client-service model. This can create opportunities to undertake meaningful research that advances the priorities of both HRC Foundation and our partners.
These partnerships are intended to produce research that advances shared learning and strengthens understanding of LGBTQ+ communities. Because they involve deeper collaboration, we evaluate them differently from standard recruitment or fee-for-service projects, based on alignment with HRC Foundation’s priorities, staff capacity, and the research's potential value to LGBTQ+ people.
Best for: allied nonprofits, foundations, academic institutions, and other mission-aligned organizations that want to develop research collaboratively with HRC Foundation, especially when the findings can advance shared understanding, inform advocacy or programs, and benefit LGBTQ+ communities beyond a single organization.
Research Standards & Ethics
Community trust is central to Community Insights. All projects conducted through or recruited from the panel must meet standards for privacy and confidentiality, informed consent, participant compensation, data quality, and ethical engagement with LGBTQ+ communities. We also review external projects for mission alignment and potential community harm, and research partners must agree to protections governing participant information and appropriate use of the data.
Contact Us About Your Research Needs
Whether you are planning a national LGBTQ+ survey, trying to reach a specialized population, or looking for a trusted recruitment partner, we would be happy to discuss your research needs.
Tell us about your audience, research question, timing, and desired sample, and our team can help assess feasibility and identify the best way to work together.