Pride organisers say Trump purge on diversity is driving drop in funds for UK events

UK Pride faces a “critical” funding crisis amid warnings that Donald Trump’s assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the US is having a direct impact on firms in Britain.

- BRYONY GOOCH

The UK Pride Organisers Network said 75 per cent of Pride events across the UK have seen a decline in corporate sponsorships this year, with a quarter experiencing funding drops of more than 50 per cent.

Meanwhile, GoFundMe has reported a “remarkable” 82 per cent increase in organisers resorting to crowdfunding events to bridge the financial gap.

Pride organisers have told The Independent that big corporations who have long sponsored them are “pulling back their funding in all aspects”, especially those with head offices in the US, after Trump issued a series of executive orders targeting diversity programmes in the public and private sectors, with many corporations such as Amazon and Google scaling back their DEI efforts since February.

While Pride has grown as a movement across the UK for a decade, Dee Llewellyn, chair of UK Pride Organisers Network and director of partnerships and growth for London Pride, said corporate funding has “fallen off a cliff”, causing a number of events across the country close their doors, including big events such as Liverpool.

The situation has led one expert to warn that “the golden era of corporate sponsorship might be over” for LGBT+ organisers.

Mrs Llewellyn fears the LGBT+ community could experience “five years of difficulty and struggles” as Trump fully implements the DEI cuts, adding “it is the start of that process now”.

“I think we will see more global brands declining, not because they don’t want to participate, but because they don’t have the DEI budget to do so,” she added. “It’s not the people on the ground in the UK either, I’ve had brands that have withdrawn this year that were absolutely devastated to have to do it.

“But they’ve had their budgets cut from America and there was absolutely nothing they could do to argue or fight that in the UK.”