LGBTQ+ acceptance is here. It’s just not evenly distributed. As with many marginalized groups, the global LGBTQ+ community has been engaged in a long and ongoing struggle for equality. To a large extent, that struggle plays out across a country’s laws, rights and cultural landscape. For example, marriage equality, adoption, blood donation, military service rights, even the rules surrounding gender assignment on government documentation – each can have a profound impact on a person’s life. And each are governed by specific public policies and laws. This is a lot of data. And navigating it creates ongoing complexity. From its work as a peer-to-peer not-for-profit supporting the LGBTQ+ community, PFLAG Canada knew that inequalities are both widespread and vary widely depending where you are.

The brief was to draw attention to the fact that these inequalities still exist – and help the LGBTQ+ community navigate them. The key objectives were to shine a light on global inequalities, engage global LGBTQ+ travellers, and bring scale to PFLAG Canada’s mandate. For members of the LGBTQ+ community, the Pride flag has always been a symbol of one thing: welcome. So what if the Pride Flag could help LGBTQ+ travellers see the world?

The sheer volume and decentralized nature of global legal data on LGBTQ+ issues is a barrier to access and, fundamentally, a barrier to progress. We can’t change what we can’t see. So DestinationPride.org was created – a data-driven search platform that reimagines the Pride flag as a dynamic bar graph, then uses it to visualize the world’s LGBTQ+ laws, rights and social sentiment.

The website was launched in 92 countries, 46 languages, with 109 unique Facebook campaigns. To launch Destination Pride globally, more than 100 geographically individualized Facebook Ad campaigns were created, targeting people who were interested in LGBTQ+ topics, groups and events, and who showed interest in travel. Ads ran in local languages, and were contextual to local news events, such as the cancellation of the Pride parade in Uganda. The campaign also connected with contextual ads based on local conditions. For example, during Toronto’s cold winter, ads were shown that demonstrated how to use the platform to find LGBTQ+ friendly hotspot vacations. Whereas in relatively hostile Moscow, Russia, ads were run showing gay-friendly destinations within a direct flight.

In total, more than 100 unique campaigns were created, running in 92 countries and 46 languages. On reaching the site, users could search any town, city, province, state or country on earth. The site’s algorithm automatically calculates six key measures of acceptance, such as marriage equality, sexual activity laws and real-time social media sentiment. It then generates a Pride flag visualization based on the data. Each visualization provides a quick snapshot, and point of comparison for how far a destination is on its journey to LGBTQ+ acceptance.

To further help the platform propagate, sharing was made easy through the “Raise the flag” call to action. Each share amplified the organization’s message and helped further the objectives to shine a light on LGTBQ+ inequities, engage global travellers and bring scale to PFLAG’s mandate of peer-to-peer support for people struggling with issues of sexual diversity.

The results included awareness, connection, engagement and the ignition of a global conversation. In its first month, Destination Pride engaged users from more than 150 of the world’s 195 countries – and inspired calls to action among tourism offices, business leaders, politicians, celebrities and mainstream media. Additionally, the data visualizations were invited to hang at the London Design Museum’s retrospective on design and political messages.

Key results included over 135 pieces of media coverage, including Fast Company, Huffington Post, Lifehacker, ad trades and LGBTQ+ publications from Brazil to Norway to Japan, 1.26-million estimated coverage views, and a 1,226% increase in social mentions of PFLAG Canada during the campaign period. Over 85,000 destinations were searched and flags generated, garnering partnership interest from major global travel and LGBTQ+ community Brands - all contributing to Destination Pride being the most shared and discussed communication platform in PFLAG’s 45-year history.