“It empowered us as a community”: Wix Rainbow

Our own LGBTQ+ community - Wix Rainbow - empowers, inspires, supports, and encourages our employees to be inclusive, and to support their local LGBTQ+ communities

When Assaf Gonen and Ronen Yoscovich initiated the first Wix Rainbow event in early 2018, they didn’t know what to expect. “We invited a famous Israeli radio host to give us a talk about his experience as a gay person - coming out, becoming a part of the LGBTQ+ community - and I honestly thought that we’ll be 3 people: me, Ronen and our guest”, Assaf, our Design Development team lead, recalls. “Luckily, and much to our surprise, not less than 80 Wix employees showed up. That’s how Rainbow started its way”.

The idea to form a community for Wix’s LGBTQ+ employees came up just a short time earlier. “We ran into each other in some hallway in the office and started talking about our desire to create a community. We wanted LGBTQ+ employees at Wix to feel that they’re not alone, to educate people outside of the community, to address LGBTQ+ issues that might arise, and also to give back. I consider myself very lucky to work in a company such as Wix, and I want others to have that chance too. Many members of our community face obstacles that may prevent them from getting a great job. We want to change that”.

In the years since its inception in our Tel Aviv offices, Rainbow chapters were opened in other Wix sites such as San Francisco, Miami and Dublin, and held events like a 12 week program in which Wix employees helped young people from the LGBTQ+ community to create new websites built on the Wix platform; invited speakers from the community to tell their story in order to remove barriers and break stigmas, and initiated many volunteering activities meant to assist LGBTQ+ people in need. This year is no different, and during this year's Pride month, Wix Rainbow initiated and organized a series of inspirational, educational and community-building activities in its sites around the world.

Assaf says that he understood how important Rainbow actually is, only in the summer of 2018. That July, when the LGBTQ+ community in Israel protested against a newly passed surrogacy law that discriminated against same-sex couples, many companies in Israel’s private sector expressed their support for the protesters. “We wanted to express support for the LGBTQ+ community through a big billboard campaign, and Wix gave us a free hand to create our message on that issue and a budget to present it to the world”, says Assaf, a father of two young children born through a surrogacy process.

“It made me realize that we were seen as the ones representing the LGBTQ+ voice within the company. It really empowered us as a community since we want to promote diversity. When all your employees come from the same background, they’ll approach things from a similar angle. However, when people from different backgrounds work together, it naturally creates an environment in which people see things from multiple perspectives, and that’s a good thing for everyone”.

Alejandro de la Torre from Wix Miami, says that as a Wix Rainbow U.S. forefather (the Miami chapter was launched in 2018), he felt that it was important to open chapters on every site in the U.S. in order to bring the initiative to all employees.

“Wix Rainbow is our global initiative to support and show our love to not only our internal LGBTQ+ community but the external one as well.

"Rainbow is the place to be whoever you want to be, so we encourage everyone to be their own unicorn. We believe in a safe, loving, and inclusive environment so Wix Rainbow celebrates diversity and all the amazing people that have any contact with us. We empower our employees to inspire others, spread the rainbow, and act in the community. We're happy that Wix Rainbow now has representatives on every U.S. site - Miami, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cedar Rapids, Austin, and Phoenix”.