Turning Research into Transformational Change How HRC Foundation and Community Insights are changing the face of LGBTQ+ data in America

Community Marketing & Insights has been doing the same work in parallel for more than 30 years. That shared history is why it matters that CMI is now part of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, rebranded as Community Insights. Community Insights will provide critical data to our communities, the media, the marketplace and lawmakers. 

Since its founding in 1992 by social science pioneers Tom Roth and David Paisley, CMI has earned deep trust across corporate America, philanthropy, nonprofits and government agencies.Their work helped employers understand LGBTQ+ workers and workplace climate, and gave institutions the practical insight needed to move from intention to measurable action. Central to that work was CMI’s proprietary LGBTQ+ research panel — built over decades through partnerships with hundreds of LGBTQ media outlets, organizations and community networks — enabling research that was both rigorous and grounded in lived experience. The HRC Foundation has built that same trust over many decades of research and reporting. Through tools like the Corporate Equality Index and the Municipal Equality Index, we have shown that data can be more than descriptive. It can be a lever for accountability and a roadmap for progress.

Moving CMI under the HRC Foundation is not about changing what works. It is about protecting it and expanding its reach at a time when the stakes could not be higher.

“The HRC Foundation is the research and educational arm of the Human Rights Campaign, working to build a world where LGBTQ+ people are ensured equality and embraced as full members of society,” said CMI in their final press release ahead of the acquisition. “We have collaborated with the HRC Foundation for many years and feel confident that they will continue to leverage research to advance LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices and keep the spotlight on our lived experiences at home, at work, in healthcare and beyond."

As federal agencies retreat from collecting data on LGBTQ+ people, pulling questions from the Census, limiting tracking by the CDC, and narrowing what about our lives our government will acknowledge, the risk is not abstract. When communities are not counted, they are easier to ignore and dismiss. CMI’s research panel, powered by the HRC Foundation, ensures that does not happen.

In 2025, following the transition of CMI’s research work, HRC implemented the 18th Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey as our first major research project — carrying forward this critical effort to document LGBTQ+ lived experience nationwide. One of the questions in the ALCS examined public confidence in marriage equality and how LGBTQ+ Americans are responding to renewed threats to Obergefell, offering one of the first data-driven looks at how fears of reversal affect families and perceptions of legal security. 

Health remains a central focus as well. The ALCS documents growing barriers to HIV prevention and treatment, with respondents reporting that federal policies have made accessing care more difficult in the past year, and explores how discrimination and exclusionary policy environments weaken trust in federal health agencies and exacerbate disparities, particularly for transgender people and LGBTQ+ adults with lower incomes.

The research also captures how discrimination reshapes daily life beyond healthcare. Separate briefs examine declines in acceptance, outness and visibility, tracing how experiences of bias are directly connected to LGBTQ+ people pulling back at work, in public spaces and within their own communities. Additional analyses focus on economic security, documenting how discrimination in workplaces and financial systems, combined with hostile policy environments, erodes financial stability and widens existing disparities.

Taken together, this body of work reflects a research agenda that is both expansive and deeply human. It does not study LGBTQ+ people in the abstract. It studies how policy choices affect safety, health, stability and the ability to live openly. It measures not just outcomes, but trust, fear, resilience and resolve.

For corporations seeking to support LGBTQ+ employees and consumers, CMI’s work has long offered insight rooted in trust and methodological rigor. For advocates and policymakers, the HRC Foundation’s research infrastructure has translated data into action. Together, they form a research engine that can meet this moment with clarity, credibility and care.

Data alone will not secure equality. But without it, equality becomes easier to dismiss, easier to delay, easier to erode. By bringing CMI and the HRC Foundation together, we are making a clear statement about the future of this movement.

We will continue to count what matters. We will continue to tell the truth about our lives. And we will ensure that no matter who refuses to look, LGBTQ+ people are never erased from the record again.

Be part of this important research — join the Community Insights LGBTQ+ Research Panel.