"KGS: One Year Strong! Exciting Changes Ahead"

It’s been almost a year since we posted our first “meet and greet” event at the French Creperie. Since then, KGS has grown to be so much more. This post is intended to share our progress, what's changing, and where KGS is going.

We will be saying goodbye to our original Facebook Group! This was a private group that was by invitation only. Our hope is for KGS to organically become what the community needs it to be. Facebook supported this to create a core group within the gay community. From this core group came great feedback that our community truly was bigger than just “gay men”. This conversation is what KGS is all about! Community! This core group believed in what KGS was doing and felt it needed to be shared and experienced by more than just the gay community. The question was asked, “Why not everyone? Doesn’t everyone need community?” There will be a later topic for a blog post regarding our values. Thus, the KGS Website was created to provide access and transparency to everyone. For privacy and safety reasons, KGS will continue to be membership-based. This provides limited access for those who are learning about us, in contrast to our members who solely have access to the location and dates of events.

We will be replacing the Facebook Group with a Facebook Page! This is also in conjunction with KGS creating an Instagram and Twitter. See links below These are still in the beta phase, and we are exploring their utility. These are not just for KGS to promote itself but also to tag other businesses and places to give spotlight to the community. For example, our goal with the Mad Hatter Tea party was to thrift everything. Many of the costumes were items found at the monthly Pride Thrift Event. The growth and support has always been word of mouth, so please share these new changes with your friends and anyone you think may be interested in the group. We do anticipate some of our Facebook Members will be lost in the transition, but as best we can, we are trying to inform everyone of this change.

After our one year Anniversary event (May 25th, 2024) we will take down the KGS Facebook Group. The KGS Facebook information page is already up and running.  

The new KGS Website and official OG: https://knoxgaysocial.wixsite.com/main

New Facebook Page: KGS FB Page  

Instagram : KGS Instagram

X (Formerly known as Twitter) : KGS X (Twitter) 

With this increased social media presence, it is noted that we are not interested in numbers. The goal of KGS is to build community and support as many of our partners as we can and reach as many as would be interested in our group/mission.

As we approach our one-year mark, we are also excited to share that we have started the process of making KGS a community nonprofit social organization. We are now officially incorporated with the Secretary of State of Tennessee and have an EIN, making us recognized by the IRS. The next step is to polish up some logistics, and we will start the process of obtaining nonprofit status. Having this status will give us the ability to continue the work we do at minimum cost and for our members to receive some benefit from any volunteering or donations. This could be in the form of community service hours, tax write-off, and group discount benefits, etc. (More to come on donations and financial support of KGS)

We have also made some slight changes to titles. During this process, we were asked to create a “Board”. Most of our team did not like the idea of “Admins” being superior or seen as any official leader. We decided to change our titles to what we wanted to be in the group. If you haven’t met our amazing team, please do on our “About Us” page. This was also to acknowledge and honor that KGS has truly been something you have made, not “us”.

None of that would have been possible without the support of the community and the hard work everyone has contributed to make KGS what they needed it to be. With that growth, a lot has changed and will continue to do so as we approach our one-year anniversary and beyond. As we approach our one-year mark, with all the gratitude we can express… Thank you all so much! Here’s looking to many more.