On March 20, Out Professionals held a fundraiser and industry networking party at The Hubbard Inn benefitting Cara Collective.
Celebrating the organization’s first year in existence, Out Professionals Chicago founder Keith Douglas noted that the group has grown to include 500 members—with the second floor of The Hubbard Inn packed with about 200 of them that evening. Members from the engineering, finance, healthcare, military, media, advertising, publishing and luxury/fashion industries, among others, wore color-coded stickers identifying industry groupings that made it easy to find people in their chosen fields.
Out Professionals is the leading non-profit networking organization for LGBTQ+ professionals in the United States. Founded in 1983 in New York City, the organization strives to create an ever-expanding network of chapters to host events that benefit LGBTQ professionals. The group additionally created the non-profit Out Professionals Education Foundation in 2021.
Cara Collective is a national organization focused on breaking cycles of poverty through workforce training, job placement, and professional and personal coaching toward gainful employment. It works with organizations all over the country to build, deploy and grow strong workforce solutions while engaging employers, civic leaders and policy makers to shift perspectives on the issues that shape poverty.
