Sarah Kate:
In America, we could not have gotten over the marriage equality finish line without major corporations stepping up to the plate. We will not get to the acceptance finish line without major corporations stepping up to the plate. We need them.
Sam:
Welcome to the Women on the Move podcast from JP Morgan chase. I'm Sam Sapertein. Women on the Move is a global initiative designed to empower female employees, clients, and consumers to build their careers, grow their businesses, and improve their financial health. Each episode will feature successful and inspiring women who are breaking the mold. They're sharing their career journeys and leadership lessons, talking about their professional and personal goals and making a difference in the lives of others.
Sam:
This season, I'm taking you to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where I caught up with many of the women who inspire me every day. Today's guest is a change agent advocating for the LGBTQ plus community. Sarah Kate Ellis is the CEO and president of GLAAD. Since joining in 2014, Sarah Kate has been fundamental to the organization's growth and repositioning as the leading LGBTQ plus media adviser in the country.
Sam:
In this episode, Sarah Kate talks about how GLAAD has pushed for the visibility of LGBTQ plus characters in popular culture and how it has implemented initiatives to foster greater acceptance.
Sam:
Well, Sarah Kate, thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. It's really nice to have you here.
Sarah Kate:
Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Sam:
Now you're here at Davos and trying to tell the story of GLAAD, which is fantastic. Why be here? How is this a part of your strategy in terms of meeting with people and getting your message out?
Sarah Kate:
It's twofold. I think about my role every day as two things. I have two jobs to do. One is impact, making the world better for the LGBTQ community, and two is raising money. Because any president always needs to be keeping their eye on the funding.
Sarah Kate:
Here it's perfect because you have the masterminds of the world who set the agenda for the world, and making sure that we have a seat at that table, that we're talking about our community, that we're raising the issues that are most important to our community globally ... You know, it's still illegal in 70 countries to be LGBTQ, it's criminalized. It's still criminalized, and there are many countries where it's dangerous. It's very dangerous, and so it's really important that from a global perspective we're here and we're talking about this.
Sarah Kate:
Then also this is an enormous fundraising opportunity for us, seeing a lot of people who want to do the right thing and connecting with them and finding how our work can impact them and how they can help fund our work.
Sarah Kate:
In America, we could not have gotten over the marriage equality finish line without major corporations stepping up to the plate. We will not get to the acceptance finish line without major corporations stepping up to the plate. We need them. We're connected with them right now.
Sarah Kate:
There's some bad, bad bills in Tennessee. There's five bad bills being pushed through in Tennessee. We're looking to our business leaders to step up. They have economic impact, and I think that social change is an agenda item for business and they realize that they cannot sit on the sidelines anymore, that their employees expect way more of them, and that they are not just managers of the bottom line.
Sam:
Right.
Sarah Kate:
They're a manager of the world at large and their impact on the world is enormous.
Sam:
We talk more broadly about stakeholders, now, the community, not just your investors or your employees even. What can individuals do to help the cause? If we leave here tomorrow, what actions can any of us actually take?
Sarah Kate:
I think what I would recommend is going to GLAAD.org, and that's two A's. So it's G-L-A-A-D dot org, and there's always something going on.
Sarah Kate:
Here's what's for 2020, though. We have one vision, and that's called the election. We know that if we can get LGBTQ people to the polls in swing states, we can swing the election. We have enough LGBTQ people who are ready to be registered or legal to be registered are unregistered or not voting that can make all the difference in this election. We need pro equality.
Sarah Kate:
We're a 50C3, so we don't endorse officials, but what we do is we definitely shine a light on those who are pro equality. We have been seeing a big rollback on our rights, and a lot of rhetoric at our community making it dangerous. The FBI reported it's the third most dangerous year. Hate and discrimination have up-ticked every single year to the highest, now. I think it's so important for our community.
Sarah Kate:
Our wins are so fragile, and I don't think that people understand that.
Sam:
Meaning you feel like you have to keep re-winning or just going back and building that foundation over and over.
Sarah Kate:
Yes. They'll start chiseling away at our wins. It's already started in our rights. Our rights are always in jeopardy. I think that's exhausting for a community to always feel in jeopardy like that.
Sarah Kate:
That's why it's my job, I wake up, and that's what I do, but we need people to step in at certain places. We need people to contribute.
Sarah Kate:
Go to GLAAD.org.
Sam:
And vote.
Sarah Kate:
And vote this year.
Sam:
Since you took on the leadership role at GLAAD you scaled the organization tremendously, you built a lot of strong partnerships with stakeholders, and you really were able to reap the benefits of this success. Can you go back to when you first took the job and how you started to think about your early priorities?
Sarah Kate:
Certainly. For me, when I took the job what we were looking at was a situation where we had an organization who hadn't evolved with the times. Being a media organization and so much disruption was happening in media, the organization hadn't really kept up with that and the new platforms that were emerging and the new distribution along with that.
Sarah Kate:
My first priority was to figure out how to modernize the organization. It was to modernize the organization, but also to find the lowest hanging fruit in terms of funding. Because we were in need of an influx of funding. That was corporate funding was the lowest and the largest donations that you could get.
Sarah Kate:
We actually had the properties and still do have the properties for that, a mechanism for them to donate, which is our GLAAD Media Awards. That gives them visibility and opportunity for their internal and external stakeholders. Internally, it's great for employee resource groups and for retention and to show within a company that you are contributing to the LGBTQ community. Then because the sponsorship is so visible it definitely sends a signal out that you are a supporter of the LGBTQ community.
Sam:
Companies working with you can actually use this internally with their own employees, but also ensure their support is widely known publicly.
Sarah Kate:
Yes, exactly. It's a perfect mix for them. That was really something that I focused on. Those were properties that we had that were over 30-years old, that reputationally were really strong, and so I built that out and right sized those because there was a lot of value being given away for very little financial investment. We just right-sized those, and that really helped the organization solidify its foundation out of the gate.
Sam:
What's next for the organization? Do you have a strategic plan for the next three to five years? What do you focus on?
Sarah Kate:
One of the places that we're heavily focused in is new media. It's not even new, but social media, digital platforms. What we do and have done very successfully at GLAAD is measure Hollywood and the content coming out of Hollywood for representation for the LGBTQ community.
Sam:
Right.
Sarah Kate:
I want to take that model ... We have two annual reports that come out, which one is where we are on TV, and the other one is called our Studio Responsibility Index. We measure representation. I want to do the same for social media platforms, for Facebook, for YouTube, for Twitter, but we're using the lens of safety, versus representation. How safe are these platforms for LGBTQ people?
Sarah Kate:
Social media has been a great convener and organizing tool for the LGBTQ community. I would argue at a level it's why the trans community has advanced so quickly in such a short period of time. It's also been a very dangerous tool, and it's been weaponized against the LGBTQ community.
Sam:
In ways that the other forms of media haven't.
Sarah Kate:
That's right.
Sam:
It's a new way.
Sarah Kate:
Exactly, and nobody is holding these big media platforms accountable. One of the things that we've been working on is with Facebook we have been having a very public discussion with them, actually through the Washington Post, about ads that they're running that have misinformation about HIV and medication, and they are misleading. We've asked them to pull those ads. They haven't pulled those ads.
Sam:
What's the response been? Why not? Why don't they?
Sarah Kate: We're still going back and forth with them, as Facebook really does very well actually in sort of allowing people to do what they want with the platform, that they are sort of a purveyor and a host, and not an arbiter.
Sarah Kate:
I think misinformation, dangerous information needs to be held accountable. We've been having that discussion with them.
Sarah Kate:
Another great example is on YouTube, often, very often, young kids will now use that as a platform to come out ...
Sam:
Right.
Sarah Kate:
Across the world.
Sarah Kate:
YouTube's algorithms and the way that they serve up ads oftentimes now you'll see a young kid's coming out story and there'll be an ad for conversion therapy run throughout it.
Sam:
Oh, my goodness.
Sarah Kate:
Yeah. Right now we're shooting at like fish in a barrel, they say, or something. We're trying to like one-off these.
Sam:
There's just so many. Right.
Sarah Kate:
Oh, my goodness. We're working with some of the top minds in Silicon Valley to put together a report that is going to now grade these companies and hold them accountable. We've found that tool to be really successful in Hollywood and in news and journalism, and we're hoping that we'll see the same success in Silicon Valley.
Sam:
That measurement is so important for all of those different industries. In Hollywood what did you find? How did you get success up for television? Then what does that look like in social?
Sarah Kate:
First, I always say you can't move what you don't measure. Just getting a baseline to understand where we were in representation, when we started this over a decade ago we were lucky if it was 1% to 2%. Now we're looking at over 10%.
Sam:
Characters.
Sarah Kate:
Yes, representation. Yeah. This is in TV and streaming content.
Sam:
Okay.
Sarah Kate:
Streaming content was a game changer because the business model is different. There's more freedom with that business model because you're not held to the Nielsen Standards of if it fails within the first couple of weeks you've got a dud on your hand and you have to move on.
Sam:
There's more opportunity to let things grow and develop and find an audience.
Sarah Kate:
Exactly. To answer your question, I'm trying to stay on your question because there's so many ways to go with this, is that you need to measure just in very simple empirical data for people to react and respond to. We're the human race, right? We're very competitive and so ...
Sam:
We put out a number we want to do better.
Sarah Kate:
Yes. You see these networks looking at each other and ...
Sam:
Aah, in a good way, though.
Sarah Kate:
Yes. It's a great positive competition because the business model or the business argument for including LGBTQ people has been made over and over again. Everybody knows at this point, who's a player in this field, understands that creating stories about and for the LGBTQ community is a revenue generator. The business argument has been made.
Sarah Kate:
Now you've got people saying oh, they're doing really well, that means that their business is going to be met better. I think it started a real competition.
Sam:
I read this description of your career where you said it's been a long history of both media and advocacy, and GLAAD is a kind of dream job. It's more of a calling than a job, honestly.
Sam:
That is amazing that you feel that way. Not many people do about what they do for their professional lives. Talk about what this does mean to you, how this has come together for you in such a personal way.
Sarah Kate:
I was always had such grand ambitions of being this amazingly successful business woman. The only vision I had of that was like working girl.
Sam: Right. A little bit dated, now.
Sarah Kate: Yeah, a little dated, but shows you how important representation is.
Sam:
Absolutely.
Sarah Kate:
Because I always dreamed of being at a JP Morgan Chase, and in a corner office. I didn't really know what all that meant, but I knew that I wanted to change the world in a powerful way. Then along the way people started talking about purpose, like you got to find your purpose.
Sarah Kate:
What's purpose? I'm just trying to be, you know ... Run the world or something.
Sam:
Yeah.
Sarah Kate:
I luckily stumbled across purpose, and now I understand it, which is that when you wake up in the morning it is not a job that you're doing. It is a life that you're changing. I think it's making the world a better place. It's what is it in your work that you are able to leave this world better than you came into it. When I think of purpose, I think of it through that lens.
Sarah Kate:
For me early on in my life and my career, I only really thought there was like Wall Street and really that kind of big business. When I came out of college with a liberal arts degree, I thought I didn't even know I could be a business person in a creative field. I ended up getting into magazines when I realized that, and I loved it. It was heavenly. It was a great time to be in magazines, and I just built my career there on the business side of publishing, which then I got to be on the front lines of moving publishing printed into digital, which was fascinating, and I learned so much.
Sarah Kate:
But what I found was also, and I think that's the thing when you're building your career, is look for the themes of what you keep going to like a moth to flame.
Sam:
What you yourself keep returning to, that's important.
Sarah Kate:
Yes. I kept going to launches. My first magazine I worked at was a relaunch of House and Garden Magazine. Then I went to a weekly because I wanted that same energy, but it actually didn't have that same energy, I learned. Then I went to the launch of Real Simple. Then I went to the launch of Corporate Sales and Marketing at Time Warner. I feel like I kept being drawn to turn-arounds and launches, and that's sort of what I love is taking something that is just in its early stages or something that's stumbled a little but is a powerful brand, and getting it out there.
Sam:
What about that was intriguing for you, being able to reposition something, rethink its purpose and its mission, and actually execute on that?
Sarah Kate:
The only way is up.
Sam:
When you're improving and turning something around. Hopefully.
Sarah Kate:
Just showing up, you're a success story. No. I think it's I'm a builder. As soon as I'm in maintenance mode of just running something, it's time for me to move on. I like to really build and think and vision. I've had executive coaches along the way, which has been very, very fortunate, and they'll say to me I see a lot of opportunity and I can continue to build.
Sarah Kate:
When you're in the not-for-profit world, you don't have as many resources so you really have to be disciplined about how you're building, and patient. Which is something I'm not, patient. I find a lot of ambitious women who are driven aren't patient either. Our best strength is our biggest weakness, and it's being able to notice that and control that. That's really important.
Sam:
You reported last year that there was a notable negative shift in American attitudes toward the LGBTQ community, that more non-LGBTQ Americans were very or somewhat uncomfortable around LGBTQ people in select situations, and more folks in the community reported discrimination. Why do you think that has come to this stage? Why have we seen this shift?
Sarah Kate:
I'll be really frank. I think that we are a reflection of our leadership. I think our leadership sets a tone in our country of what's acceptable and what's not, and how to behave.
Sarah Kate:
When you dig into those numbers, what's even a little bit more shocking is that it's millennials that we've lost in acceptance and [crosstalk] ...
Sam:
Had you seen more improvement among that group in the prior years?
Sarah Kate:
We'd always counted on millennials. They're our saviors. Now we see their attitudes rolling back, and I think it's twofold. One is I think that the saying is true, the youth are impressionable. If we have them in a culture of bigotry and dysfunction and polarization, they are going to respond to that.
Sarah Kate:
Then I think also in terms of that community, I think there's real confusion. Our community, the LGBTQ community, is growing. You see we're about to release a new study and as part of that study it shows that 18- to 34-year-olds in America, 30% identify as LGBTQ plus. That's an astonishing number.
Sam:
It's a big number. Right. Were you surprised by that?
Sarah Kate:
No. I wasn't because we were already seeing that gen Z was at like 40%. There was about three different studies that showed us that 40%.
Sarah Kate:
Gen Z is a little bit younger, more experimental. They're still figuring out, questioning, thinking, you know. I imagine that number will decrease a little as they get older.
Sarah Kate:
30% in 18 to 34 year olds is a pretty significant number.
Sam:
Very.
Sarah Kate:
The reason I think millennials' comfort rolled back is because they are dealing with it more. Gender-nonconforming, all these emerging identities that have always existed but we haven't necessarily seen publicly before are emerging, and they're emerging in the 18 to 34 year old demographic. Those other kids are the ones that are coming face to face and trying to figure out how when someone says that they want to be identified as they/them as their pronouns, this is something that's happening much more often in the 18- to 34-year-olds, I think that the less comfortability is because they're dealing ...
Sam:
Seeing it more, and it's actually a part of their lives.
Sarah Kate:
And they'll get very comfortable with it. It's just a matter of time.
Sam:
How will you use that new information to help promote your programs, to raise more money, to do more of the things you want to do?
Sarah Kate:
I think for corporations it's critical. Not only do you need to attract this generation as new employees and the new talent pool out there, but you also have your customer base. It gets companies on both sides of it. I think that's going to be really powerful for us to come in.
Sarah Kate:
We have the GLAAD Media Institute, which is where we consult with the Fortune 500s of the world, and we do everything internally, how to help them with their policy, to externally on how to be out there in a really positive way on LGBTQ issues, both in advertising, signing amicus briefs, whatever it is in the public sphere. I think this is going to be really helpful in building that relationship with more corporates.
Sam:
It will be great. I think companies like ours to understand what is out there for our employees, for our potential employees, absolutely for clients and customers, it's a very big deal.
Sarah Kate:
It's huge.
Sam:
More and more people are listening to that.
Sarah Kate:
Yes.
Sam:
When you think about progress that's been made or changes that have been made, what is the most hopeful for you? What do you get most excited about in terms of the future?
Sarah Kate:
In our reporting on Hollywood and entertainment the way that we've seen content, and I mentioned earlier streaming content especially, has been such a great accelerator of more LGBTQ stories. I think that is ... I can't tell you how many people come up to me and say how seeing something on TV or Netflix or on YouTube has changed their lives in terms of being LGBTQ. I feel really great about that.
Sarah Kate:
I feel great about my wife and I, we have twin 10-year-olds, and just seeing the future through their eyes, how different it is from when I was 10 years old. When I was 10, I would watch One Life to Live. I'm really dating myself here.
Sam:
I did, too.
Sarah Kate:
No, Facts of Life. Excuse me. I was like, you know, I think Joe's gay, and I don't even know if I knew that term, gay, but I feel like she makes sense to me more than anyone. But I kind of want to look like Blair, very confused. I had no map forward. I had no roadmap forward.
Sarah Kate:
These kids, oh, my gosh.
Sam:
So many role models, ways to be.
Sarah Kate:
Imagine being born now. I can't imagine what my life would be. I literally thought like I would turn 21 and my life would just end. I couldn't see what it would look like because I wanted a family but that seemed unreachable.
Sarah Kate:
I grew up in a very ... I might as well have grown up in the middle of the country, even though I grew up in New York. I grew up on Staten Island, and it's a very conservative area. I had New York city right there at my fingertips, but my world was very small and so I didn't see a big future.
Sarah Kate:
I think that's what makes me most hopeful, is that these kids can see a big bright future. Even if it's not their lived experience in the moment, it's there and they can get there and we're out here fighting for them.
Sam:
Well, thank you so much for being with me today. It's been such a pleasure hearing about GLAAD and all of your work.
Sarah Kate:
I really appreciate the opportunity.
Sam:
Have a wonderful week here.
Sarah Kate:
Yes. You too.
Sam:
Thanks to Sarah Kate for sharing how she found her purpose and how she helps educate others on representing the LGBTQ plus community.
Sam:
Thank you for joining us today. The mission of Women on the Move is to help women in their professional and personal lives. Our goal is to introduce you to people with great ideas, inspiring stories, and a passion to make a difference. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe so you won't miss any others.
Sam:
Thank you to our partners at the Female Quotient and Magnet Media for helping us tell these stories. For JP Morgan Chase's Women on the Move, I'm Sam Sapperstein.