Anheuser-Busch, Others Drop Funding for San Francisco Pride
Several corporate sponsors have pulled financial support for this year's San Francisco Pride, resulting in a $300,000 shortfall.
Several corporate sponsors of San Francisco Pride, including beer giant Anheuser-Busch, have pulled their funding for the celebration’s annual festivities.
Over the past four weeks, the companies have informed organizers of San Francisco Pride that they would not be able to support 2025 Pride, claiming a lack of funds as the reason.
None of the companies cited the political climate, but Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, said that it was “very abnormal” for several multi-year sponsors to drop their support.
“I just interpreted that companies are making decisions that at this time it’s not good to be sponsoring Pride,” Ford told SFGATE magazine, alluding to decisions by several major corporations to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“I think in this political environment that they thought that was a risky decision,” Ford added. “But that’s just me reading the tea leaves. I think for a long-term sponsor not to sponsor us, they are responding to what we are.”
The companies that pulled out of Pride include beer giant Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, alcoholic beverage company Diageo — which produces Smirnoff, Johnny Walker, and Guinness — and La Crema, a wine company owned by Jackson Family Wines.
Janel Lubanski, a spokesperson for Jackson Family Wines, told SFGATE that the company still hopes to partner with San Francisco Pride, but cannot do so in the same capacity as in previous years.
“We’re not stepping away from our support of the LGBTQ+ community,” Lubanski wrote in an email. She also noted that the wine industry is currently facing challenges and that the company is still supporting a host of other Pride events in California.
Earlier this month, Ford announced that San Francisco Pride would no longer partner with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, after the company scrapped its DEI initiatives, altered some of its LGBTQ-friendly workplace policies, and changed its content moderation policies in a way that will encourage hostility towards LGBTQ people, including allowing users to call LGBTQ individuals “mentally ill” or “abnormal.”
At the time, Ford told ABC affiliate KGO-TV that San Francisco Pride would be severing ties with companies that are no longer aligned with the event’s values as a show of “resistance” in response to multiple anti-LGBTQ or anti-transgender actions by the Trump administration.
“Here in San Francisco, our community is celebrated, and we’re not going to stand for what we’re facing,” Ford said.
Ford told SFGATE that San Francisco Pride has budgeted $3.2 million for the festivities, which will take place on the weekend of June 28-29. Of that total amount, corporate sponsorships are intended to cover $2.3 million. With the withdrawal of support from Comcast and the alcohol companies, organizers now have a shortfall of $300,000.
Ford said that organizers would find a way to replace the money, most likely by soliciting private donations.
“We have no choice,” she said when asked if all festivities would continue as planned. “There are too many people depending on us. We will find a way to find the funds.”
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