The Commercial Closet Association was founded in 2001 "as a way to track and document themed advertisements." It developed out of work by Advertising Age magazine business journalist Michael Wilke, who was known for his work in writing about gay and lesbian matters in advertising. He had created a video program in 1997 called "The Commercial Closet", which was presented at film festivals internationally, and in 2001, Wilke was funded by broadcast historian Michael Collins, then of Quinnipiac College of Connecticut, to start a full nonprofit organization by the same name. The project received pro-bono work from web development firm Mediapolis and designer Stephen Mack of Gnomist to develop the first version of CCA's online advertising library and ad ratings system at CommercialCloset.org. In 2004, the name evolved to Commercial Closet Association to indicate that it was an organization and to distinguish it from the educational programs it produced.