Nashville Pride Seeks $250,000 After Sponsor Withdrawals
Nearly 40% of sponsors, including Bridgestone and Nissan, withdrew as costs rose; organizers aim to raise $250,000 by Oct. 11.
Organizers of the annual Nashville Pride Festival & Parade have launched a fundraiser to help sustain future events after several longtime sponsors withdrew their support.
In an Aug. 20 press release, Nashville Pride said sponsorship revenue is down $270,000 from previous years.
Nearly 40% of the festival’s longtime sponsors withdrew support for this year’s Pride — some just days before the festivities kicked off in late June — according to Nashville Public Radio station WPLN. Among them were Bridgestone Americas, a presenting sponsor for 11 years, and Nissan, which ended its presenting sponsorship after four years.
Those exits left Nashville CARES — a local sexual health clinic focused on HIV treatment — as the festival’s sole presenting sponsor.
Additionally, Vanderbilt University Medical Center had volunteered to staff the event’s medical tent but canceled a month beforehand, leaving organizers to pay $32,000 for medical staffing.
Rain on festival day depressed attendance by 15,000 from last year, and security costs more than doubled due to heightened safety needs, The Tennessean reports.
The resulting shortfall — now exceeding $300,000 — has prompted organizers to seek funds to sustain future events and cover rising costs.
Organizers launched an ActBlue fundraiser with a $250,000 goal by Oct. 11, aligning the deadline with National Coming Out Day. So far, they have raised just over $45,000.
“Nashville Pride is in a state of emergency,” organizers wrote on the group’s ActBlue page. “We don’t need corporations to define Pride — but their funding makes the festival possible. The sudden withdrawal of longtime sponsors has left a massive hole in our budget, putting the future of Pride in jeopardy.”
Nashville Pride’s shortfall mirrors a nationwide pullback by major corporations from LGBTQ sponsorships and Pride events, as companies scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — often under pressure from right-wing influencer campaigns.
Brady Ruffin, secretary of Nashville Pride’s board of directors, said overall charitable giving is down, but the sponsor withdrawals appear tied to rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and sentiment nationally and locally.
“Pride has always been about the people,” Ruffin told WPLN. “Corporate sponsors don’t make pride, but their sudden withdrawal has really put the burden back on us. We may be one of the first ones in the South, or in the country, to really put out this kind of state-of-emergency-esque call to action, but we’re definitely not going to be the [only] Pride that’s going to experience these kinds of things.”
Nashville Pride Vice President Alycia Ehimen said saving future festivals is about survival.
“They’re coming for our rights, our marriages, and now our community spaces,” Ehimen said. “Saving Nashville Pride is about saving more than a festival — it’s about saving our future.”
Donations to Nashville Pride can be made at savenashvillepride.org.
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