Celebrating the Sixth Sands Cares Accelerator Graduate: The LGBTQ+ Center of Las Vegas

Tonight, Sands is holding its annual global virtual celebration to honor the work of members in its flagship capacity-building program for nonprofit organizations, the Sands Cares Accelerator. The event’s highlight is the official commemoration of The LGBTQ+ Center of Las Vegas (The Center) as the program’s sixth graduate.

Through the Sands Cares Accelerator, Sands works with nonprofit members over a three-year period to incubate a strategic program or initiative and provides resources of funding, planning support, facilitation, counsel and mentorship.

The Center’s goal in the program was to uplevel its marketing and communications function to build greater awareness of its services, sustain funding development, and elevate its reputation as the leading resource and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community in Greater Las Vegas.

During its time in the Sands Cares Accelerator, The Center pursued work streams that created a cohesive and compelling storytelling platform for the organization’s mission, services and impact on the Las Vegas LGBTQ+ community, as well as a number of avenues to increase its visibility.

Setting a strong foundation in year one, The Center fielded a survey to measure awareness and found that many in Southern Nevada were unaware of the organization, yet nearly half of respondents had interest in donating.

Using these insights, The Center rebranded its offerings through a messaging framework that focused on its pillars of advocacy, health and wellness, and community services, and integrated the platform into its website, marketing materials and trainings for board members and staff.

With the storytelling framework in hand, The Center used its Sands Cares Accelerator resources to create a multiyear radio and television campaign with the Nevada Broadcasters Association that netted a 33-to-1 value in airtime, as well as worked to amplify visibility in other earned media and its social platforms.

In its final year in the program in 2025, the organization evolved its crisis communications plan and annual Impact Report, produced new videos to better tell its story and engage with donors, and built a podcast recording studio that enabled the podcast’s premier in February 2026.

Representing the success of its visibility efforts, The Center’s social media channels achieved top performance in 2025, with a 162% increase in its Facebook and Instagram views during its three-year membership, as well as a 63.5% increase in new Facebook followers and a 100% increase in new Instagram followers.

“What we’ve been able to achieve as a member the Sands Cares Accelerator is a ground-up review and rebuild of our entire communications and marketing program,” CEO John Waldron said. “The results of our multifaceted communications initiatives have made measurable impact in our ability to reach the community and serve more people with resources they need.”

One of the ways The Center tracked its progress during the Sands Accelerator was through market research measuring awareness of The Center and its services. In 2024, 22% of respondents said they had heard of The Center. Earlier this year, the number jumped to 38%, a 70% increase from 2024, and that growth was consistent across all demographics.

“By conducting this research two years apart, we were able to clearly see how our efforts were moving the needle,” Waldron said. “In marketing terms, these results puts us at critical mass – the point where awareness begins to build on itself and momentum takes over. We also saw a meaningful increase in the number of people who say they would consider donating to The Center, and with the opening of the Gavin J. Goorjian Health Center, awareness of our health services has grown significantly as well.”

In fact, visitation at both of The Center’s health care facilities increased. Improved marketing drove an uptick in visits to The Center’s Arlene Cooper Community Health Center, which focuses on sexual health screenings and preventive services, and the more recently opened Goorjian Community Health Center, which provides primary care, gynecological services and a pharmacy. Across both facilities, visits increased 54% year over year, from 11,112 in 2024 to 17,125 in 2025.

A stronger marketing program also resulted in The Center’s most successful Honorarium gala, with more than 800 people attending the event last November and the most funding raised in its 30-year history.

Finally, The Center’s marketing progress has strengthened its reputation. Last year, the organization was recognized by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce as the Small Business of the Year and awarded the Community Leadership Award by Silver State Equality.

In 2024, Waldron was asked to join CEO Exchange, a collaboration of Southern Nevada’s largest nonprofit organizations that work together to strengthen the social safety net. The Center also is collaborating with the National Association of Community Health Centers, the nation’s leading advocacy organization working to advance community health centers as the foundation of an equitable health care system.

“We credit these connections to the increase in visibility we’ve been able to make through resources from the Sands Cares Accelerator,” Waldron said. “With the ability to better tell our story and the assets we received to drive visibility, we were able to accelerate performance of a critical function that has impact on all aspects of our work, enabling us to reach more people and greatly build our stature. Our work in marketing and communications will have impact for years to come, and our time in the Sands Cares Accelerator has set us up well to grow into the future.”

The Sands Cares Accelerator was inspired by the entrepreneurial and philanthropic legacy of Sands’ founder Sheldon G. Adelson. Since 2017, the program has provided nine organizations in Las Vegas, Singapore and Macao with focused resources for building their capacity to better serve their missions.

To learn more about the Sands Cares Accelerator and its focus on building nonprofit capacity, visit: https://www.sands.com/responsibility/communities/sands-cares-accelerator/