Utah and SLC Pride events lose sponsorship money this year

As Pride Month rolls on, at least two of Utah’s flagship LGBTQ+ prides are feeling the sting of a nationwide corporate retreat from LGBTQ+ sponsorship. Amid a charged political climate and rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, both festivals are seeing reduced budgets, fewer big-name sponsors, and uncertain financial futures.

This, in a time when all costs are rising.

Utah Pride

“Expenses have gone up considerably compared to previous years,” said Chad Call, executive director of the Utah Pride Center. Hosting a major festival in downtown Salt Lake City has never been cheap, but this year, Call expects a price tag of nearly $1.2 million, even after severe cutbacks since the gross overspending that occurred in 2023. The biggest hike? Infrastructure: fencing, security, and other vendor costs. This year, Utah Pride offered a large discount to vendors willing to set up their own tenting for the event, saving money for both Pride and the vendor.

But the real hit came from corporate dollars that never arrived.

Call said that sponsorships were nearly half what they were in 2022 and 2023.

“We’re on track to be short of those years by somewhere between $250,000 and $300,000,” he said.

The “Sponsors” page on the Utah Pride Festival website lists 59 sponsors who supported Utah Pride this year. Twenty sponsors from last year are not on this year’s list, including long-time major financial supporters Mark Miller Subaru, Young Subaru, and the Utah Transit Authority.

Companies that were active as major sponsors in 2019 and are no longer contributing include AT&T, Bud Light, Showgear Partners, Bottega, L3, Planned Parenthood, Progressive Leasing, Roofers Supply, Walmart, and xFinity.

A few companies significantly reduced their level of involvement from previous years, including Adobe Systems, Equality Utah, Intermountain Health, Select Health, and Vivint.

On the flipside, several sponsors increased their level of involvement, including BW Bastian Foundation, Delta, Goldman Sachs, Real Salt Lake, and Bridge Investment Group.

SLC Pride

The grassroots SLC Pride festival that is hosting its second annual event is grappling with the same forces.

Realizing back in February that sponsorships were not going to be on the same level as last year, SLCPride Festival Director Bonnie O’Brien says they had to significantly cut their operating budget.

Last year, SLC Pride spent nearly $144,000 to put on the event. This year, organizers are trying to pull off the 2025 event with just $30,000, Some of those expenses are being personally fronted by organizers using their own credit cards.

Five of last year’s larger sponsors, including Walmart, Lowe’s, Citibank, and public institutions like the University of Utah and Utah Valley University, withdrew after legislative action in Utah effectively dismantled DEI programs.

“This is what DEI looks like. That’s the point. These are companies that supported Utah Pride and SLC Pride last year, but this year, they’re nowhere to be found. They’re not in the parade, and they’re not part of the festivals in any way, shape, or form,” O’Brien said.

To help fill the void of sponsorships, SLCPride had several fundraising events through Spring, and launched Queer Card, a discount program with participating local businesses, to encourage community engagement and generate funds.

Why?

Beyond corporate divestment, Utah’s political climate has cast a long shadow over Pride. In recent years, the state passed a ban on gender-affirming care for youth, restrictions on bathroom access for transgender people, and a prohibition on pride flags at government buildings and public schools.

For many companies, the climate may seem too hot to handle.

“We reach out to hundreds of potential sponsors each year, and even in really generous years, many of those potential sponsors decline our offer for sponsorship for a myriad of reasons,” Call said. “We don’t always know why they choose what they do, but we are grateful for our sponsors who have prioritized supporting our community, and are so thankful for their commitment this program.”

“We can only assume that [this year] is impacted by pressures on a national level,” he said.

Indeed, the national landscape has shifted. Since Trump’s return to the political spotlight, many companies have scaled back their public commitments to LGBTQ+ causes. Academic experts say this corporate cooling-off is more than coincidence — it’s reactionary.

“It demonstrates that the support was contingent,” Karen Tongson, chair of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Southern California, told KUER. “It wasn’t unconditional.”

Tongson notes that corporate Pride involvement increased in the 1990s under Democratic administrations, coinciding with efforts to expand markets and diversify audiences. But as LGBTQ+ visibility surged, as well as its estimated $1 trillion in U.S. spending power, many businesses began to “rainbow wash” their brands during Pride without making long-term commitments to LGBTQ+ issues like HIV/AIDS, anti-discrimination protections, or trans rights.

“People are concerned, understandably, that when sponsorships are in parades, is this a surface-level, tokenistic kind of support?” Andy Holmes, a sociology doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto who studies the intersection of corporations and Pride culture, told KUER.

Holmes notes that while corporate sponsorships have helped Pride festivals grow, they have also exposed the community to the volatility of politics and market interests.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “Organizations rely on these dollars. But it does take Pride further from its radical, protest-oriented roots.”

Despite the financial headwinds, both organizations say the spirit of Pride remains intact.

“Pride has always existed,” Call said. “It existed long before most mainstream folks recognized it, and it will continue to exist in one form or another.”

This year’s list of Utah Pride sponsors:

Ruby level:
BW Bastian Foundation
Delta Airlines

Topaz level:
Goldman Sachs
iHeart Media
Real Salt Lake

Jade level:
Bridge Investment Group
QSaltLake Magazine
Third Sun

Sapphire level:
ACLU
Adobe Systems
Best Friends
Big Cottonwood Ski Resorts
Broadway Media
CHG Healthcare
Equality Utah
Flourish Therapy
High West Distillery
Lending Club
Marathon Oil
Master Control
Mountain West Hard Cider
Ogdens Own Distillery
Rocky Mountain Power
Salt Lake City Corp
Snowbird
Target
Zions Bank

Amethyst level:
1-800-Contacts
ABC 4 Utah
Advanced MD
Chartway Credit Union
Discover
eBay
Habitat Burger & Grill
Hilton City Center
Hotel Monaco
Hyatt
Intermountain/Select Health
Key Bank
KUER 90.1
Lucero Hair and Wellness
Melting Pot
Mountain West Veterinary Specialists
Nexus IT
Nordstrom
Pluralsight
Rio Tinto
Salt Lake Brewing Co
Seniors Out and Proud
SLUG Magazine
Swire Coca Cola
Tiffany & Co
TruFru
Tsuki Sake
Utah Jazz
Utah Mammoths
Vivint
xFinity
zao Modern Asian Cafe