After announcing a fundraising goal this summer to keep St. Pete Pride going into the future, officials with the organization said they are still hundreds of thousands of dollars behind.
St. Pete Pride, which puts on the largest celebration of its kind in the Southeast, is looking to fill a $289,000 shortfall by the end of next month. Officials are asking the community for help.
“I want to make sure that this organization has a solid foundation and is here next year and for many years to come,” said TrentBrock, the newly elected board president for the nonprofit which is celebrating its 25th anniversary next year. “With the community’s help, everything is going to be possible.”
More than $50,000 in donations have poured in since Brock made a plea to the community inOctober. That leaves the organization with six weeks to find the additional $239,000 to pay off its existing debt from this year’s parade.
It’ll also make up for dwindling corporate sponsors in an increasingly hostile environment for LGBTQ+ communities and the initiatives that seek to support them. A new state law taking effect in January will prohibit local governments from giving money or promoting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Brock said there will be a St. Pete Pride parade next year but “the scale and the size” of the celebrations could look different based on the fundraising outcome.
“The attack on the LGBTQ+ community is really only just getting started. People are really set out to make sure that we go away,” Brock said. “This is a chance for the community to step up and make it known that we will not accept that.”
That message may ring even more true now, more than one year after Tampa Pride announced it would be going on a hiatus in 2026. At the time, leaders cited the “political and economic climate” including the loss of corporate sponsors and grant funding.
St. Pete Pride has historically relied on sponsorships to cover their operating budget of about half a million dollars, Brock said. It lost about $200,000 in total from sponsorships last yearso now the organization will focus on donations from individual donors.
Organizers asked the estimated 350,000 attendees that filled the streets of downtown St. Petersburg in June to donate just $1 to push them out of their budget shortfall.
The organization mustered up just around $16,000 that weekend.
Brock was there, walking the line and making his plea face-to-face. Like the nonprofit, people are struggling with costs of their own, from volatile gas prices to rising grocery and energy bills.
“People are really trying to stretch every dollar that they have but I’m hoping that they see the importance of St. Pete Pride in the community,” Brock said. “It provides safe places for our community to gather and be their authentic selves and feel like they belong.”
Scott Simon, a Tampa resident and go-go dancer at Bradley’s On Seventh, watched as his local event in Tampa was paused and now worries for the future of the event across the bay in St. Pete.
He promised to match $25,000 in donations. “Tampa Bay has lost enough pride events already,” said Simon, a New Jersey native. “We do not need to lose any more.”
“In the long run, you make this a more resilient organization that becomes bulletproof,” he added about relying less on corporate partnerships and political changes.
The issues nonprofits are facing are endemic, Simon said.
Pride of Tampa,a new organization, stepped up to host a parade on the other side of the bay after Tampa Pride canceled its lineup this year. The nonprofit is fundraising year-round through events like drag bingo said president Daniel Johnson.
Because they are a new organization founded late last year, Johnson said the donations often start out small as they build a relationship with businesses. “We’ll take anything because at the end of the day it helps the community,” he said.
But the community always comes together in times of need, he said. That gives him assurance even in the face of political headwinds.