Denver Pride lost a lot of corporate support. Longtime LGBTQ+ advocates see it as an opportunity.
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DENVER — Each June, an estimated 500,000-plus people gather in Denver’s Civic Center Park for PrideFest, a two-day celebration featuring LGBTQ+ performers, community organization and a sea of rainbow-themed merchandise.
Another notable presence at the celebration is massive corporations like Southwest Airlines, Wells Fargo and Verizon, who cover their displays in rainbow colors and hand out free swag during the parade and festival.
But after the Center on Colfax — the organization behind Denver PrideFest — lost 62% of its sponsorship funding, this year's celebration could look different.
In a written statement to Rocky Mountain PBS, The Center’s interim CEO Natalie Zanoni declined to say which of The Center’s former sponsors are no longer supporting the event.
“Some organizations that have participated in years past have only been able to return at lower levels of sponsorship, and others have even been unable to return entirely due to rollbacks of DEI budgets caused by national legislation,” Zanoni wrote in a statement.
Amazon, Nissan and Walmart were among the festival’s largest donors in past years, according to Denver Pride’s website. CNBC reported that those three companies are not sponsoring other pride festivals in 2025. Rocky Mountain PBS reached out to Amazon, Nissan and Walmart but did not hear back prior to deadline.
“Perhaps it’s for the best that our hands aren’t tied to corporations who go wherever the winds take them,” said Christopher Sloan, a co-founder of the Center on Colfax and of Denver’s first Pride celebration in 1974. “We became a commercial boondoggle for whatever corporation that thought the publicity of supporting us would support them also.”
Sloan and a small group of activists launched Denver’s first official Pride after years of what he described as police harassment and legalized discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community.
Fifty-one years later, a now-retired Sloan is hopeful that corporations pulling their funding could help return Pride to its origins of protest and community gathering.
“A lot of people stopped going to the parade because it got too commercial or it just got too big and overwhelming,” Sloan said. “I think we’re going to garner more support within our own community.”
At 73 years old, Sloan has seen many iterations of Pride, from its original small gathering in Cheesman Park, to protesting the government’s inaction during the AIDS crisis and the eventual development of corporate sponsorship.
Sloan compared the current laws proposed against transgender people to the AIDS crisis, in which 300,000 men died before President Ronald Reagan acknowledged the issue. As an HIV positive man, Sloan has spent much of his life battling the stigma against the disease and fighting for others living with it. He helped open Colorado’s first and only apartment complex exclusively for those with HIV.
“We’ve always made it through and we will make it through this again, but I think we need to reassess how we're going to make it through,” Sloan said. “The Democratic Party turns a blind eye to us most of the time and we’ve learned we can’t rely on corporations, so it needs to be something else.”
In Pride’s early days, Sloan said he and other organizers relied on donations of less than $5, almost exclusively from other queer people. That meant Pride didn’t have the expensive performers or fancy floats it has today, but it was centered around those who made the celebration happen.
“We don’t have a great handle on our politics or our goals as a community, and this is an opportunity to figure that out,” Sloan said. “AIDS allowed us to coalesce around something. It feels like trans rights should be the thing we coalesce around now, but we’re not really there.”
Corporate support didn’t come to Denver Pride until 1996, the same year the FDA approved antiviral drugs to treat HIV and AIDS. Before then, Sloan said organizers scraped together funds from local gay bars, and the event felt more like a bring-your-own-lunch picnic than a citywide celebration.
Over the years, Sloan has watched political parties and major corporations swing between championing and condemning the LGBTQ+ community, often depending on what they believe is most opportunistic.
“When it looked like the public relations of supporting us helped them, then we got the money, now it looks like the [public relations] is iffy whether that’s going to bring them money, and we’re losing that battle,” Sloan said.
Pride festivals around the country have seen a similar trend of large companies removing their financial support, as well as rolling back commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion in their workplace.
“We’ve known since the beginning that these big sponsors aren’t really here for us,” said Tara Jae, executive director of Black Pride Colorado and YouthSeen, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ youth of color. “They’re here for themselves.” (Note: Jae worked at Rocky Mountain Public Media from 2019-2023.)
Pride began in New York City as a response to police raids on the Stonewall Inn, a mafia-owned gay bar in Greenwich Village. As the LGBTQ+ community continues to face threats from President Donald Trump and his administration, Jae believes that protest remains more vital than ever.
“I think it’s a good opportunity for the community to come together, protest and really support the intersections of identity,” they said. “Pride has always been a protest and we have to make room for that.”
“Sponsorship is always a give and take,” Jae said. “It makes me sad that this is the focus when we really should be looking at how Pride should always put the community first.”
Soleil Hanberry-Lizzi, a community organizer who previously protested the police presence at Pride, said even when corporations are genuine in their efforts to support LGBTQ+ people, they’re ultimately beholden to shareholders and customers. Hanberry-Lizzi wishes The Center and other pride organizers would cut ties with companies altogether.
“They’re focused on their bottom line, not human lives,” Hanberry-Lizzi said of the corporate sponsors. “They’re becoming less and less willing to support queer rights because they think they can either use us as a bargaining chip or they need to turn away from us to preserve a conservative client base.”
In 2024, Target and other large stores stopped carrying rainbow clothing in June after anti-LGBTQ+ backlash and boycotts.
Hanberry-Lizzy hopes to see more protests at Pride this year. She understands the desires for a large party, especially in oppressive political times, but believes necessary change comes from speaking out.
“Out of the bars and into the streets,” she said.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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