One community need that has repeatedly been identified by the Rainbow Community in Waterloo Region (through our Community Conversations and Reports), is the creation of an online portal to serve as a central point of reference and referral for services and events.
In February 2020, the Waterloo Region Rainbow Coalition partnered with Wellbeing Waterloo Region to launch the Out In Waterloo Region Events Calendar! This first step in the project allows local community organizations serving the LGBTQ2s+ community to contribute to a central event calendar.
Project History
In 2012, the Waterloo Region Rainbow Coalition reserved URLs for OutInWaterlooRegion (.ca, .com and .org), with the intention of creating a web portal. The portal would include (at a minimum) the following features:
- Ability for individuals & organizations to log into the portal to maintain their own listings and calendar of events.
- Automated e-mail reminders regarding updates and hiding of listings and events that are not updated regularly.
- Events calendar
- Searchable listing of local services, business, social groups etc. welcoming the Rainbow Community
- Monthly E-Zine with articles and events.
- Social Media Integration
- Historical archives and information
Due to funding limitations, the three reserved URLs were reduced to two in October 2015. To better reflect the intention of the project, only the OutinWaterlooRegion.ca and OutinWaterlooRegion.org URLs were renewed (the OutinWaterlooRegion.com was not renewed).