Major Sponsors Withdraw Support from San Francisco Pride

The annual San Francisco Pride Parade has lost several long-time sponsors. Executive director Suzanne Ford described this move as “very abnormal.”

Ford told SFGATE, “I’ve just assumed that companies make decisions that it is not good at this time to sponsor Pride. In this political climate, I think they felt that it was a risky move, that’s me reading tea leaves. I think that if a long-term partner does not sponsor us, it is because they don’t like what we are.”

Sponsors included Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, Diageo, and La Crema. The organization must scramble in order to cover the $300,000 deficit.

This report comes shortly after San Francisco Pride announced that it would be ending its long-term partnership with Meta after the company ended its DEI programs.

Ford stated, “Right away, there is a lot of negative attention being paid to the LGBTQ community. Perhaps people are making these decisions from a marketing perspective, This is a short-term perspective and it could be dangerous for businesses to adopt that viewpoint.”