Cincinnati Pride Cuts Ties With Several Corporate Sponsors
The LGBTQ organization wants to partner only with corporations that demonstrate regular support for the LGBTQ community and respect for DEI.
Cincinnati Pride announced it will cut ties with several corporate sponsors, sacrificing tens of thousands of dollars, in response to the companies’ decisions to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and initiatives.
The organization acknowledged that it would be a struggle to replace the funding for its annual Pride parade. But it has also said it is essential to stand by its values, which include respect for the history and diverse culture of the LGBTQ community.
Cincinnati Pride says it doesn’t want to work with corporate sponsors that are viewed as hostile to those values and would rather work with companies that have demonstrated a genuine, ongoing commitment to LGBTQ causes throughout the calendar year, according to Cincinnati NBC affiliate WLWT.
“Organizations that, I would say, walk the walk as much as they talk the talk,” Jake Hitch, a board member with Cincinnati Pride, said of the types of sponsors with whom it would like to partner. “One of the things that we’re looking at is: are you an advocate for the LGBTQ community only in June or are you January to December?”
Hitch told local ABC affiliate WCPO that Cincinnati Pride won’t publicly name the corporations with whom it’s severing ties.
“We’re not looking to, you know, throw anyone under the bus or really even make the conversation around organizations we’ve…said no to. It’s about trying to bring the community in together,” Hitch told the news station.
Cincinnati Pride’s re-evaluation of its relationship with certain sponsors comes at a time when there is a larger conservative backlash, politically and societally, against LGBTQ visibility more broadly and expressions of gender nonconformity, whether in the form of drag or transgender identity.
Several corporations have shifted in a more conservative direction, scrapping DEI policies or pursuing ways to distance themselves from the LGBTQ community, such as refusing to participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which measures how LGBTQ-friendly a company’s employment policies and employee benefits are.
Many companies, including John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Walmart, Best Buy, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Target, have taken these actions either in response to threatened boycotts or in an effort to align themselves politically with the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump issued an order earlier this year seeking to scuttle all DEI efforts within the federal government, and has promised to use the Department of Justice to investigate and pressure private companies to scrap DEI initiatives.
Cincinnati Pride is currently in the midst of a fundraising campaign. Since it was launched last month, the campaign has raised $16,753 from 186 separate donors. Those wishing to donate may do so by visiting givebutter.com/cincypridefundraising.
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