By Graham Nolan: Co-Chair, Storytelling and Partnerships, Do the WeRQ, and Kate Wolff: Co-Chair, Programming and Operations, Do the WerQ
Having co-founded Do the WeRQ, we’ve operated since day one at the epicenter of an issue dominating trade and consumer headlines alike: advertising inclusion of queer humanity. May marked our 5-year-anniversary, and we have more to say than ever about queerness and marketing. But it’s important to reflect on another headline-grabbing subject, as we consider what’s made all our efforts possible: the media has fixated for years about how it’s harder to connect talent with work these days… so what inspires people to work for free?
It’s important to explore how we can all inspire, mobilize and celebrate talent who seek to deliver unique, powerful ideas free of charge for a cause they care deeply about. That’s something that can bring us all together.
To show the scale of what community volunteerism can accomplish in adland in half a decade, here’s some tangible outcomes from the first national LGBTQ+ ad/marketing community…
- The first-ever survey of LGBTQ+ ERGs in adland, alongside the 4A’s
- Four annual unprecedented research studies with DISQO
- Appearances at Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, SXSW and beyond
- 125+ press hits and roughly 500 newsletter highly engaged subscribers
- The first-ever LGBTQ+ audit of SXSW programming
- Project Violet, the first U.S. LGBTQ+ adland mentorship network
- With Stocksy, the LGBTQ+ IRL Collection featuring LGBTQ+ models and photographers
Assume that in 250+ weeks our community delivered a minimum 10 hours of work per week. That’s at least 2500 hours of work delivered for the industry, free of charge. If the average talent rate involved was $100/hr, that’s at least a quarter million dollars of professional grade work. Minimum. Again, this is amid a tricky few years where talent struggles to find purpose-driven work, with compensation for their perspectives and talent. And amid a time where employers grapple with motivating people they’re compensating with cash and benefits.
One thing is for sure: This industry is better when people care, and when we acknowledge the caring of others.
Whether volunteer or compensated roles, there’s an opportunity for leaders to take the lessons of volunteer leadership – specifically lessons prevalent in adland volunteerism – to consider new paths to making people care. That’s the only way to improve a business that can improve the world.
Our lessons learned…
Mission Is Everything
Our mission has been to increase LGBTQ+ creativity, representation and share-of-voice in advertising and marketing. It works because it’s incremental and achievable. It works because it’s clear and memorable. And we STILL consider changing it every year, because we owe it to our changing community. But we’ve found it’s the direct path between intent and impact, for every program – so it stays. You don’t change just because the winds do.
Do It Right versus Doing It Fast
Some people LOVE deadlines. But it’s funny how fast ad people are to put arbitrary, tight deadlines on their work. When we tell them we’d rather do everything right than do it fast, you hear audible sighs of relief; deliberate pacing ain’t the adland standard.
Creativity can take time. If you have time, let it breathe. Whether we take five weeks or five months, most of what we do will still be the first time it’s ever been done. If people aren’t stressed every minute ‘til the project launch, they’re that much more motivated.
Individuals Step Up More than Organizations
We’ve found that individuals have been in a position to step up, and corporate sponsors have too – yet employee resource groups have almost never been able to volunteer as a team. So… why not? Hard to say. ERG members are usually directed towards Pride efforts, or billable pursuits. That said, it’s always one person who steps up: they volunteer the company and budgets they influence, or volunteer their own time.
We talk about industry progress in terms of big brand commitment, which will be essential to moving the needle. But nothing happens without one person raising their hand first. It’s the DIY in DEI – but like all things DIY, solo commitment lacks community continuity and processes. Generate a “pebbles in the pond” effect: demonstrate the systemic ripples you achieve just by doing something. Make them all feel like leaders.
Integrity Matters More Than Authenticity – Period
The decade of hearing about “authenticity” has led to many more feelings than actions. The authenticity our industry proclaims is seemingly a genuine feeling of devotion to a cause. If that were enough to change things, we’d be in a much better place.
Integrity, in action, is more important. Integrity is doing what you say you’ll do.
Make everything as measurable and behavioral as possible. Our own values have corresponding, related behaviors – to demonstrate how intent should manifest. Set it up so that when you step up, you commit time to a specific task with realistic timelines and expectations, so everyone can manifest their integrity. It feels good for our volunteers to find that outlet.
Our purpose in life isn’t to work. Speaking for ourselves, one exists to sing Dua Lipa at karaoke and read comics books, and one is here to play with pugs while making – then drinking – the perfect martini.
But the werq gives us important professional and activist purpose – and by us, I mean hundreds of people who’ve given to the mission. We’ve seen tangibly how volunteerism is changing our prospects, and our very futures – and we smile as we all blow out our birthday candles together.
As you demand work of your teams, leaders: do what you can to make the work align with what they truly care about. There is the crux of work being labor and work being creative. We are both.
Work can be a weight sometimes. But werq uplifts lives.
