Arkansas LGBTQ+ organizers crowdfund to make up for fewer Pride sponsors in time for June

Yahoo

12-05-2025

(Getty Images)
The inaugural SoMa Pride festivities in June 2024 brought hundreds of people to the Little Rock neighborhood to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
SoMa Pride will return this June 7 'no matter what,' organizer Elizabeth Michael said — even if a funding shortage forces it to downsize.
The SoMa 501 nonprofit, of which Michael is executive director, launched a crowdfunding campaign in March with a goal of $20,000 to 'bridge the gap' after losing 'a few major funding sources.' As of Wednesday, the campaign had raised $2,320 from 42 supporters.
SoMa Pride is co-hosted by Central Arkansas Pride, which also hosts LGBTQ+ events in October, and SoMa 501. Organizers for June's events are not alone in their crowdfunding efforts; NWA Equality, which runs Northwest Arkansas Pride, raised over $30,000 in early April to make up for lost event sponsors.
Even so, most of Northwest Arkansas Pride's sponsors have maintained their support, which director Richard Gathright said he appreciates.
'When I started doing this in 2018, our budget was $50,000, but as we've grown and expectations have grown, the event's now a little over $300,000 to put on,' Gathright said.
Michael said she won't 'point fingers' at any entities that rescinded funding, and she noted that Arkansas' situation is not unique. Pride festivities in major cities nationwide this year have lost major corporate sponsors, such as Anheuser Busch in St. Louis and Target in Minnesota's Twin Cities. The changes have come as state and federal officials have targeted LGBTQ+ rights and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
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Walmart rolled back its DEI policies last year, but Gathright said the Bentonville-based retailer has never been a Northwest Arkansas Pride sponsor.
Gathright and Michael both said the funding shortages are related to the current precarity of federal funds. President Donald Trump's administration has frozen the disbursement of grants for diversity initiatives and federal funding for hospitals, among other things. Gathright said Northwest Arkansas Pride regularly gets support from local hospitals.
Michael called economic struggles and the political climate 'a perfect storm' for Pride organizing, but noted that several entities continue to support the cause, including the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau.
SoMa is short for 'South on Main' and encompasses Little Rock's business district on Main Street just south of Interstate 630. Some of those businesses are LGBTQ-owned, and a Pride flag is painted on the pavement at the intersection of Main and 12th streets.
Both SoMa and Northwest Arkansas' Pride festivities will include a parade and performance art such as live music. SoMa Pride might have fewer performers than last year if it doesn't meet its fundraising goal, Michael said.
The event had two stages last year but is expected to have only one this year. Even so, the organizers had booked four musical acts as of Wednesday, Michael said. She added that SoMa 501 could raise money with a Pride 'pre-party' or similar events, weather permitting, so 'all hope is not lost.'
Pride events and the LGBTQ+ community nationwide have not always had the amount of support from businesses, corporations or politicians that they have had in recent years, said Evelyn Rios Stafford, a Washington County justice of the peace from Fayetteville. She is Arkansas' first and only out transgender elected official, and she said she has been attending Pride events since the early 1990s, and not just in Arkansas.
'Whether there's corporate sponsorship or not, people were able to make that happen 30 years ago,' Rios Stafford said. 'If we have to go back to that grassroots kind of organizing, I think that's still worthwhile. I think visibility today is now more important than ever.'
Northwest Arkansas Pride has drawn tens of thousands of attendees each year for the past few years, and state Rep. Tippi McCullough, D-Little Rock, said the magnitude of the event gives her 'chills just thinking about it.'
McCullough is the only out LGBTQ+ member of the Arkansas Legislature. She has seen support for LGBTQ+ Arkansans 'ebb and flow' over time, she said, and she appreciates the growth of Pride festivities outside Central and Northwest Arkansas, the state's most populous areas, and Eureka Springs, which is known as a haven for LGBTQ+ people.
McCullough's hometown of Hot Springs will host a Pride parade June 7, and Batesville, Fort Smith and Russellville had Pride celebrations in 2024. Saline County scheduled but later canceled a Pride event last year.
'Every LGBTQ person in Arkansas should know that there is a community out there, that there are people like them and that there are people who care about them,' McCullough said.
The Legislature has passed several laws in the last few sessions that McCullough and other Democrats have criticized as unfairly targeting LGBTQ+ people. One such law from the session that just ended will allow Arkansans to sue for damages if they encounter someone in a bathroom, changing room, shelter or correctional facility who does not align with the 'designated sex' of the space. Another law would protect Arkansas government employees from adverse employment action if they refuse to do something within the context of their jobs that conflicts with their 'sincerely held religious beliefs,' such as providing a marriage license to a same-sex couple.
Discriminatory legislation can be 'a Catch-22,' McCullough said.
'These bills being brought up every year helps, in some ways, to fuel Pride events, because there's such a reason to make sure that we have them,' she said.
Gathright and Michael agreed that persistence and togetherness in the face of adversity are not just helpful but necessary for LGBTQ+ Arkansans.
'Something that was really heartwarming for me last year was to hear stories of 16-year-olds from rural Arkansas who came to SoMa Pride and said this is the first time they've been around other people like them, and the first time they felt safe and welcome being who they are,' Michael said.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a well-known transgender advocate who lives in Little Rock, will be the grand marshal of this year's SoMa Pride parade. Griffin-Gracy was present at the 1969 Stonewall riot between LGBTQ+ people and police in New York City, a pivotal event in the LGBTQ+ rights movement that advocates say paved the way for Pride celebrations.
Gathright said Pride continues to be a form of protest, especially in the current political climate.
'I'm going to keep fighting for LGBTQ rights as long as I can and keep making sure that we have Pride, that people can come to enjoy themselves, be themselves and not have to worry about much of anything,' Gathright said.
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