Pittsburgh’s annual Pride parade and festival is less than three months away, but miles from its funding goal as corporations step back from donating. Without enough money, organizers warn they will have to make big cuts.
Pittsburgh Pride is scheduled for June 5-7 in Allegheny Commons Park West, located on the city’s North Side. The parade will take place on June 7, starting in Pittsburgh’s Strip District neighborhood.
In past years, organizers raised at least half the funds for the event by early spring, Pittsburgh Pride director Dena Stanley said. Pittsburgh Pride organizes the parade and festival each year. But this year, the group has raised only $80,000 as of April 2, a far cry from their goal of $500,000.
Many corporate donors have not responded or said they lack the funds to donate, according to board member Lyndsey Sickler.
“While some of that is possible, the sheer volume of corporations that haven’t stepped up or continue to make it difficult to connect with them is staggering,” they said.
“To successfully do a pretty OK event, we need at least $200,000, but to do it the way we’ve been doing it, we need at least $500,000,” Stanley said.
Pittsburgh Pride will make decisions about what to cut if they haven’t raised enough funds by May, she said.
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The parade will continue to staff security and medics, Stanley said. But stages for paid performers, including the community stage and the children’s stage, are on the chopping block. Paid cleanup crews could also be scrapped.
Six corporate sponsors have signed on this year — Sheetz, Macy’s, Trulieve, American Eagle Outfitters Inc., ConnectiveRx, and Covestro, totaling about $33,000, according to Stanley. The rest of the money raised so far comes from contracts with vendors, she said.
Past sponsors like Walmart and Tito’s Handmade Vodka have yet to offer any financial support for the 2026 parade. Through a spokesperson, Walmart said the company remains focused on creating an environment where associates and customers feel like they belong.
Tito’s Handmade Vodka donates to more than 10,000 nonprofit events each year, according to a company spokesperson. In a statement, the company said they work to support as many organizations as possible and cannot continue to sponsor the same events into perpetuity.
Stanley said she hopes to receive support from the state again this year and to work with the city to alleviate costs.
“We still have a little bit of time, so I’m very optimistic that we will be able to make this happen,” Stanley said.
The exodus of corporate sponsors began last year, Axios reported. Organizers patched the gap with $197,000 in grant money from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, and the state Tourism Office, which is housed within DCED.
“Last year, we were able to get to a point where we were able to pay everything that we needed to pay,” Stanley said. “We didn’t have anything over or extra, but this year, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
This year, Pittsburgh Pride hired one part-time seasonal employee to help organize. Stanley, Sickler, and everyone else on the 14-member board are volunteers. Stanley’s full-time job is executive director of the Pittsburgh-based, Black- and trans-led nonprofit TransYOUniting. Sickler is the executive director of Proud Haven, a nonprofit focused on TLGBQ youth struggling with housing insecurity.
This article was published in partnership with the Pittsburgh Media Partnership Newsroom. The PMP Newsroom is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania. Find out more information on foundation and corporate funders here.
