Corporations scale back support for Pride parades

Pride parades nationwide are losing corporate sponsorships as companies scale back their support, according to reports.

San Francisco

San Francisco Pride has a gaping $300,000 hole in its 2025 Pride Parade budget after corporate donors—including Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, La Crema, and Diageo—pulled out. Over 70% of SF Pride’s $3.2 million budget is meant to come from corporate sponsors.

“I just interpreted that companies are making decisions that at this time it’s not good to be sponsoring Pride,” San Francisco Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford told SFGATE. “I think in this political environment that they thought that was a risky decision. 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.”

New York City

But San Francisco is not the only Pride parade losing sponsors. According to Forbes, NYC Pride—which organizes the largest parade in the country—says some corporations are cutting back on their support while others are still considering whether to do so. NYC Pride Media Director Chris Piedmont did not name specific companies but blamed the cuts on the “volatile political environment.”

St. Louis

On Tuesday, St. Louis Pride launched a grassroots campaign to raise $150,000 after Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis owner of Budweiser, Corona, and other brews, ended its sponsorship of PrideFest after 30 years. The decision came after “many sponsors” reduced their contributions, Pride organizers said in an Instagram post.

“[W]e are devastated this year that our hometown brewer, Anheuser-Busch, has declined to sponsor PrideFest after more than 30 years of partnership. At a time when many sponsors have already reduced their contributions, this decision is especially painful. We are saddened to lose such a historic supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community in St. Louis,” wrote the organizers. “In addition to the loss of Anheuser-Busch, funding has been coming in well below expectations, and we are currently over $150,000 short of last year’s total.”

Houston

Pride Houston has reportedly lost $100,000 in sponsorships after some companies slashed their donations by as much as 75%. While not naming any companies, the board of directors said the cuts have “impacted certain areas of programming.”

“The current political and economic climate has had a significant impact on sponsorship levels from corporations across a variety of sectors,” said the board.

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