As the holiday shopping season kicks off, equality-minded shoppers can stand with companies who stand with the LGBTQ community by using the new HRC Foundation’s popular consumer guide to hundreds of American companies to choose brands and retail outlets committed to LGBTQ-inclusive workplace policies and practices.

The Buying for Workplace Equality guide, released today by the HRC Foundation, the educational arm of the nation’s LGBTQ civil rights organization, was first issued more than a decade ago. It provides invaluable consumer information based on company scores reported in HRC’s annual Corporate Equality Index (CEI), as well as HRC-researched data on additional well-known companies and their brands.

“Our annual Buying for Workplace Equality guide provides quick, user-friendly help in selecting everything from groceries to cars, allowing fair-minded consumers to use their wallets to resist attacks on the LGBTQ community by supporting brands committed to fully inclusive workplaces,” said Deena Fidas, Director of HRC Foundation’s Workplace Equality Program. “ Every year we hear from members of the LGBTQ community and many other consumers who want to choose brands that align with their priorities of workplace fairness. Using the Buying for Workplace Equality guide this holiday season helps ensure that their dollars go to businesses that support equality.”

Through the CEI, the HRC Foundation proactively rates more than 1,000 Fortune 500 companies and top law firms on LGBTQ-inclusive workplace policies and practices. The new guide includes more than 750 companies, 600 of them rated in the CEI, and an additional 140 independently researched by the HRC Foundation. A total 5,600 affiliated businesses and brands are featured in this year’s report.

The Buying for Workplace Equality guide sorts businesses by sectors, assigning them a score ranging from zero to 100 based on LGBTQ workplace equality, as measured by the CEI and HRC-researched data.

Businesses and their products are divided based on their CEI rating into red, yellow and green categories so that consumers can easily determine which brands support LGBTQ workplace equality:

• Green (80-100): Businesses/brands with the highest workplace equality scores.
• Yellow (46-79): Businesses/brands that have taken steps toward a fair-minded workplace and receive a moderate workplace equality score.
• Red (0-45): Businesses/brands that receive our lowest workplace equality scores

Now more than ever, it is important to support businesses that support equality. For more information on the Buying for Workplace Equality guide and to search by company category, go online to www.hrc.org/buyersguide.