Every participating Center will receive $100 per year for every business that claims and keeps their listing on QWELL’s GREATER app because of their Team Members. There is NO LIMIT on this amount. Funds will be distributed to your Center at the end of the last semester of the contest. 

Did you catch that? Your Center will get $100 every year from every business you signed up that continues their monthly GREATER membership. 

Every Center participating in a contest will be eligible to win the Grand Prize. The amount of the Grand Prize increases with every business that claims its listing as part of the contest. 

Your Center will earn extra points toward the Grand Prize for every completed Queer Wellbeing Survey taken by Team Members in the GREATER app (Survey Launch-Fall Semester Only). 

Your Center can earn additional points for supplying social media content for the program and contest. 

Every member of a Center Team will be eligible to win supplemental prizes.

QWELL’s GREATER COLLEGE CONTEST is open to:

• LGBTQIA+ Centers or equivalent student groups at colleges and universities in the United States and its territories; and,
• Members of Centerlink, the network of LGBTQIA+ community centers, in the United States and its territories.

One! Only your school’s official LGBTQIA+ center OR one equivalent student group can register for the GREATER College Contest.

Your Team is whoever wants to help you win! For example:

• Students at your school (& prospective students like surrounding high schools)
• Staff at your school or Center
• Your students’ and staff’s Parents, Friends, and Family Members
• Alumni 
• Community Supporters 

Your local LGBTQIA+ community center (must be registered with Centerlink)

If your Center does youth work, you already know that  we must be extra cautious when programming for minors. 

All Team activity flows through QWELL’s GREATER app, which is safe for all ages. 

However, if you want to plan an in-person Team gathering that would mix minors and adults, you should take your Center’s usual precautions to protect LGBTQIA+ youth.

• Grantwriting support for your Pride Scouts team
• Printable palm cards to hand out to businesses
• Graphics package 
• Outreach guidance and strategy calls with QWELL staff
• “Cheat” suggestions
• Social media strategy and support

Nope! It’s absolutely free for you to participate! In fact, we’ll end up paying YOU when your Team gets businesses to claim their listings!!!

Besides the chance to prove your school is better than its rival? Your Center needs more incentive?? How about:

1. Your Center gets $100/year for every business your team signs up that keeps their listing!
2. Chances to win more money and other prizes for your Center!
3. Networking opportunities with other Center leaders in the program!
4. Even better, you’ll get early access to QWELL’s online platform that will make it easy for you to solicit LGBTQIA+ friendly businesses in your area for donations and other types of support in the future. 
5. Future features will include a tool you can use to message all your Center’s Team Members using QWELL’s GREATER platform. You will be able to fundraise, share events, or share contest updates, for example. 
6. You will also get access to the GREATER app’s data about LGBTQIA+ quality of life in your local area. Centers can use this data for grant-writing, program evaluation, lobbying, and other purposes. QWELL’s Queer Wellbeing Study provides helpful data about Queer Wellbeing in six dimensions:
   1. Physical Health
   2. Mental Health
   3. Relationships & Community Connectedness
   4. Living Environment 
   5. Learning Opportunities
   6. Economic Condition

QWELL is the LGBTQIA+ community foundation serving Greater Austin, Texas, which has the nation’s third largest openly LGBTQIA+ population. 

Since 2018, we have conducted the Queer Wellbeing Study in collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Dell Medical School. 

Thousands of Austin-area LGBTQIA+ residents have completed the survey. Local LGBTQIA+ organizations and the City of Austin have found the data invaluable in measuring and tracking queer wellbeing. 

The data is used for grant-writing, program evaluation, academic publication, and decision support for actions to improve LGBTQIA+ quality of life. 

You can review some reports using the data here. 

For the first five years of the Queer Wellbeing Study, data was collected using an online Qualtrics form. Beginning in 2024, data will be collected through QWELL’s GREATER app, making it much easier for LGBTQIA+ people to answer the anonymous questions over time and providing deeper, more valuable data. 

Your Center earns extra points toward the Grand Prize for every survey completed by an app user on your team.

Who said you could only register businesses in your town? 😉

Cheating is highly encouraged! Visit our cheat page for ideas.

Smart question! 

The best practice is for your Pride Scouts to frequent these businesses (with their friends!) so the business feels constantly supported by your local LGBTQIA+ community.

Your team members can also sustain their interactions with businesses they signed up. By staying in regular communication, your team member can share your needs with the business and also inquire about how the business is doing.

Also, we’ll show our impact on their business! The GREATER app’s companion website will generate reports to share with participating businesses. These reports will show how many GREATER app users visited their business and how much spending was reported. 

Absolutely! Your participation is free, but there are costs associated with the GREATER Pride College Contest. QWELL Community Foundation will be happy to work with you on grants to support your participation in our Pride Scouts program. for example, we’ll help you ask your local Walmart for a Community Grant. 

You might want grant money to pay for program expenses like:

• T-shirts and program swag
• Printing palm cards for businesses
• Any staff time dedicated to the program
• Program promotions like advertising or event tabling.