Tulsa Reaches Out (TRO) partnered with several Tulsa-area organizations to conduct a needs assessment survey to provide outreach, create advocacy groups and guide policymakers about the needs of Tulsa’s sexual and gender minorities, commonly referred to as the LGBTQ+ community.
TRO commissioned The Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa to conduct the survey within Tulsa’s LGBTQ+ community. More than 800 anonymous surveys were completed and analyzed. The steering committee met over an 11-month period to inform the design and promotions of the survey, and analyze and interpret the findings. From this effort, a 73-page report was released in November 2019.
From the findings and the report, TRO established three goals:
The Prism Project tracks changes in the LGBTQ+ community since TRO first conducted a LGBTQ+ Needs Assessment in 2004-2005. The new project highlights key findings as well as noting comparisons, improvements and challenges the LGBTQ+ community now faces as compared to 15 years ago.
TRO and its 27-member steering committee are actively involved in engaging with various Tulsa area organizations to highlight the report’s findings and stimulate dialogue on how to best implement the goals of the undertaking.
TRO is planning a series of facilitated roundtable discussions on different focus areas of the report with key stakeholders on The Prism Project’s findings. These discussions are designed to identify next steps for improving services to Tulsa’s LBGTQ+ community. Additional outreach efforts will be undertaken over the next several months to inform non-profits, corporations, policy makers and others of the survey results.
Additional materials will be added to this site as identified to help support outreach and training to improve utilization of the report’s findings.
For more information or to arrange a facilitated discussion within an organization, please contact Dennis Neill at dneillok@mac.com or (918) 808-1010.
About Tulsa Reaches Out
Tulsa Reaches Out is an advisory council within the Tulsa Community Foundation whose goal is to raise awareness and address changes needed for sexual and gender minorities.
To help continue the conversation online, we've created a Social Media Toolkit including graphics and suggested talking points you can post on Facebook, Instagram (feeds or stories!), Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
How to use:
Example messaging:
I wanted to share an important report released in November 2019 entitled, “The Prism Project” to better inform the community of issues involving Tulsa’s LGBTQ+ members. Tulsa Reaches Out (TRO) partnered with OU-Tulsa’s Hope Research Center and several Tulsa-area organizations to conduct a needs assessment of the LGBTQ+ community, which led to more than 800 survey responses and dozens of findings.
For example, many LGBTQ+ individuals (or youth) experience (Insert one point here). Please visit link.ou.edu/tulsa-lgbtq access the full report and learn more.
**NOTE: When including a website link in a social media post caption, a graphic will sometimes be automatically generated. On Facebook, specifically, you can remove that automatically generated graphic and replace with one of the images we provided.
