Pride organizations across the U.S. are entering June without the financial backing of several longtime corporate sponsors who cited the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies and economic uncertainty in reducing or withdrawing their support, forcing groups to cut budgets, cancel events, and pursue alternative funding streams. Major names including Marriott, L\u2019Or\u00e9al and Red Bull continue as top-level backers, but most brands that withdrew in 2025 have not returned at the same level, if at all, leaving large Pride groups in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington D.C., and Toronto grappling with six-figure shortfalls.
“We\u2019re not going to return to 2019, where we had much bigger levels of sponsorship prepandemic,” said Patti Hearn, executive director of Seattle Pride. Hearn said Starbucks\u2019 Pride Network employee group curtailed its investment this year, though its float will still appear in the parade, and Accenture is not returning after years of support. Sponsors “are just a little bit reluctant,” she said.
New York City Pride, which hosts the largest Pride parade in the U.S. by attendance, ran nearly $800,000 short in 2025 after past sponsors including Mastercard and Nissan did not repeat, said executive director Im Lynde. The group is back in the black this year, Lynde said, counting 11 more sponsors than in 2025\u2014including digital media company Yahoo and a record number of local queer organizations\u2014but also cutting spending and canceling some of its parties. Mastercard will not sponsor the New York City Pride March this year, but did pay fees for roughly 100 employees and executives to walk in it holding a company banner, according to a spokesman. “We are not repeating our dark period that we were in last year,” Lynde said.
San Francisco Pride accumulated more than $300,000 in debt last year due in part to the departure of key sponsors including Anheuser-Busch InBev and Comcast, said executive director Suzanne Ford. The organization paid down the debt by raising money from area foundations and reducing its parade\u2019s footprint, Ford said. This year Starbucks will hand out coffee to San Francisco Pride marchers but is skipping its usual sponsorship, according to a spokeswoman. Comcast\u2019s LGBTQ employee group will march with its fee paid by the company, but Comcast did not purchase a traditional corporate sponsor package. “I\u2019m cautiously optimistic,” Ford said. “I\u2019ve just got to find some new corporate sponsors out there.”
Sponsors have provided a range of reasons for their pullback, including economic instability and the Trump administration\u2019s moves against DEI programs, said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance in Washington, D.C. Bos said his organization saw defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and others pull out when it hosted the traveling WorldPride festival last year. “There were those that said, \u2018We don\u2019t know what we can do because of federal contracts or DEI,\u2019” he said. Several federal agencies that typically sponsor Capital Pride\u2019s annual activities all stepped back last year and have not returned, Bos added. A federal healthcare provider last year told organizers of a Pride event in Indiana that it could not participate “due to changes in the approval process and organizational guidance related to Executive Orders,” according to an email viewed by the Wall Street Journal.
Corporate Pride sponsorships are unlikely to violate anti-DEI policy directly because they are designed to celebrate certain groups of employees rather than to discriminate against others, said Gary Kibel, a partner at law firm Davis+Gilbert who has advised clients on the subject. But companies with government contracts could lose valuable business if the administration determines they are out of step, Kibel said. Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the center for education policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the government might frown on contractors\u2019 support for Pride groups that promote positions at odds with its own on subjects including transgender rights. “When we looked last year at these parades and who was pulling out and why, I think the sense was that [the Pride groups\u2019 purpose] was not just advocating for gay relationships, it was advocating for a progressive take on gender writ large,” Butcher said. The White House referred inquiries about DEI and Pride to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Pressure on DEI has affected Pride across the U.S. border as well, said Kojo Modeste, executive director of Toronto Pride. The organization carries an $800,000 deficit after losing several key sponsors last year including Google and Home Depot, Modeste said. Toronto Pride has joined two other Pride organizations in lobbying the Canadian government in Ottawa for support. “The anti-DEI stuff that we\u2019re seeing happening in the U.S. has trickled to Canada,” Modeste said.
Some groups have spoken of reducing their reliance on corporate partners with the help of individual donors, but organizers said the numbers do not add up. “It\u2019s hard to replace a $150,000 sponsor with individual donations,” said Ford of San Francisco Pride. Seattle Pride has intensified its grant-writing activities and developed alternative revenue streams by partnering with local organizations such as Seattle Frontrunners, an LGBTQ walking and running club, to stage races and other events, Hearn said.