LGBTQ+ Lifestyle Site To Relaunch After Funding Award

Planet Nation gets the green light to relaunch on receipt of an LGBT+ Futures grant 

A grant of £7500 has been awarded to Planet Nation to help the new non-profit organisation relaunch and support organisations in reaching their community right from the outset.

LGBT+ Futures: Equity Fund is a two-year £786,000 partnership between Consortium and The National Lottery Community Fund, designed to help community-led, grassroots organisations support some of the most under-represented and marginalised LGBT+ communities.

Planet Nation has been motivated to rebuild our online community and website, as part of a brand refresh. Originally known as Planet London, Planet Nation has historically been a lifestyle website designed to connect to and communicate with the wider sapphic community. That is anyone who identifies as a queer woman or non-binary person attracted to women.

Social media websites, for a long time, have provided a discussion forum and platform on which to reach other members of the community.

However, in the last few years, their algorithms have started to limit the free flow of conversation among the sapphic community. Use of common queer language can land you in ‘Facebook jail’ and those that are not out cannot join queer groups to engage with the community, without being outed by the platform. These restrictions also prevent any advertising that uses gender or sexual preference data, however this data is still collected and sold onwards.

Planet Nation has strict data privacy policies that prevent any such data being used or sold to outside parties.

Catie Lake, Managing Editor of the new team, explained: “Planet Nation is relaunching with a renewed focus on the needs of the sapphic community in 2022 and beyond. Our content will raise the profile of the individuals and groups that are active in our community and especially support those people who are exploring their identity – perhaps before coming out to their friends and family. A safe online connected community is essential in the current climate. We are very grateful to the Consortium and The National Lottery Community Fund for choosing our group to receive an LGBT+ Futures grant. This funding means we can make a start on relaunching the website and reaching out to feature the remarkable individuals that make up our community.”

A Planet Nation membership will include a number of perks including discounted access to the sapphic video-on-demand platform Lesflicks, community safety app ‘help me Angela’ and access to entrepreneurship support from Hatch Enterprise; with more benefits to follow.

The new team is excited to be bringing sapphic people together so that they can learn from each other and foster a more inclusive and connected community. Now that most of the testing and configuration is done, although this project will inevitably evolve over time, Sapphic individuals are now invited to join the community from August onwards.

We want all our users to discover the breadth of talent and expertise in the sapphic community, through our community profiles, reviews and more.

Learn more about why we exist; our hopes, dreams and desires for a safer, more connected sapphic community on our website https://planet-nation.com/ or by following @PlanetNationLBQ on Twitter and Instagram.

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