WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – Live-cam platform Flirt4Free, a division of VS Media, has donated the internet domain Gay.com to the Los Angeles LGBT Center. The domain’s market value has been estimated in the millions.
Flirt4Free acquired the domain name last year for an undisclosed sum and subsequently crated an online hub for LGBT individuals looking for a community. When Flirt4Free President Gregory Clayman and Executive Vice President Brad Estes realized the company could take the project no farther on its own, they devised the Gay.com Charity Challenge with the goal of awarding the domain to a benevolent organization that could.
“We reached out to five of the top LGBT charities and asked them to provide us with a proposal by July 1,” said Clayman. “The proposals detailed how each organization planned to use the site in order to further their organization while supporting the LGBT community as a whole.”
Each of the charities offered its own concept. Clayman and Estes found the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s proposal the most compelling.
“We were thrilled to see the enthusiasm and ideas the challenge brought forth by the various charities,” Clayman said. “We believe that if they follow their plans as outlined, their efforts with the domain will have a massive impact on their charity and the LGBT community not only in Los Angeles, but everywhere.”
Estes added, “The Los Angeles LGBT Center provides services for more LGBT people than any other organization in the world. I’m very happy to announce that the future of Gay.com will go on within their extraordinary organization.”
VS Media’s Flirt4Free has shown a focused commitment to the gay cam space for more thn two decades. According to Estes, the Gay.com donation doesn’t change that commitment. He said Flirt4free still has plans to turn an associated domain, Gayhub.com, into a community-building property that aligns with Flirt4Free’s values.
“We can still accomplish our goals and do something great for the LGBT community at the same time,” he said.
The donation will be finalized in early August, allowing the Los Angeles LGBT Center to implement its plan for the domain. The first phase will see Gay.com become an additional domain for the organization’s newly launched blog, Vanguardnow.org, which shares stories about the Center’s local and global work.
“We’re incredibly grateful to VSMedia for turning control of [Gay.com] to the world’s largest LGBT non-profit organization,” said Jim Key, the center’s chief marketing officer. “We never could have imagined that, one day, ownership of such a valuable and iconic domain would be transferred to us.”
Since 1969, the Los Angeles LGBT Center has celebrated, cared for and championed LGBT individuals and families in Los Angeles and beyond. For years, the charity has held a coveted four-star rating on Charity Navigator. Today, the center offers dozens of programs and services in four major categories: health, social services and housing, culture and education, and leadership and advocacy.
Future visitors on Gay.com will find stories about LGBT people as well as information about the center and its work to “build a world where LGBT people thrive as healthy, equal and complete members of society.”
According to Key, however, that’s only the beginning.
“We’ve only just begun to think about the tremendous possibilities for the domain,” he said.
To learn more about the Los Angeles LGBT Center and everything it does for the LGBT Community, visit LALGBTcenter.org.
