Jonathan Crutchley
Jonathan Crutchley is co-founder and chairman of the board at Online Buddies, a leading global online media innovator exclusively serving the gay market segment through a variety of digital platforms focused on facilitating online dating, social networking and community involvement.
Crutchley launched OLB in 2001, with co-founder Larry Basile, and in the past eight years of operation they’ve built their flagship product, MANHUNT.net, into a category leader that consistently ranks among the top two Web sites in the United States, according to the Hitwise Lifestyle Gay and Lesbian Quarterly Top Ten Report. MANHUNT.net boasts 2 million active members in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Before joining Basile at Dial Information Services, a service in the Boston and New York metro areas that connected gay men by telephone, in 1992, Crutchley worked as a real estate broker in Boston. He is a 1973 graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and holds a B.A. degree in history.
With his life partner, Crutchley maintains homes in Massachusetts and California, where he often hosts benefit events for charities such as the Desert AIDS Project. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Netizen of the Year Award, from the Free Speech Coalition, for his work to oppose the 2257 censorship law. Other charitable organizations Crutchley supports include the Community Research Initiative of New England (CRINE), Pine Street Inn, AIDS Action Committee, AIDS Emergency Fund and The Living Center.
Larry Basile
Larry Basile is co-founder of Online Buddies, a leading global online media innovator exclusively serving the gay market segment through a variety of digital platforms focused on facilitating online dating, social networking and community involvement.
Basile launched OLB in 2001, with co-founder Jonathan Crutchley, and in the past eight years of operation they’ve built their flagship product, MANHUNT.net, into a category leader that consistently ranks among the top two Web sites in the United States, according to the Hitwise Lifestyle Gay and Lesbian Quarterly Top Ten Report. MANHUNT.net boasts 2 million active members in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Before OLB, Basile owned and operated Fritz, a popular gay bar in Boston, and the Chandler Inn hotel. He’s the founder of Dial Information Services, a telephone service that, before MANHUNT.net, connected local gay men in the Boston and New York City metro areas. He was also treasurer and owner of New York City’s OutWeek magazine during the late 1980s.
Basile received an MBA in finance from William & Mary College in Virginia before studying to be a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston and earning a degree in philosophy from St. John’s Seminary. An activist on behalf of gay rights and AIDS research, Basile is a member of the Human Rights Campaign, Act Up! and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. He takes special pride in having founded the Grass Roots Gay Rights Fund and the Boston Gay Pride Street Dance, which have raised over $800k for community organizations over the years. He also enjoys horticulture, collecting 16th- and 17th-century books, and ornithology.
