It's Only Abnormal to Some

Pride parade on 6/30/24 (Zimmrman/SFGate)

The SFGate reporter calls it a "very abnormal" development, but to this observer it's not surprising at all. [bold added]

Several longtime corporate sponsors of San Francisco’s Pride celebrations are pulling their funding for the festivities, leaving Pride organizers searching for another way to raise $300,000.

In the past four weeks, multiple companies told San Francisco Pride, the nonprofit behind San Francisco’s annual Pride Parade and Civic Center celebration, that they would not support the 2025 Pride celebrations. In an interview with SFGATE, San Francisco Pride’s executive director, Suzanne Ford, said she was “really disappointed” by the developments.

In their communications with San Francisco Pride, the sponsors all cited a lack of funds. None of them mentioned the political climate. But Ford noted that it was “very abnormal” for several multiyear sponsors to suddenly drop their support for the event...

Ford told KTVU-TV that those sponsors included Comcast; Anheuser-Busch, the company behind Budweiser and Beck’s beer; wine company La Crema; and Diageo, the beverage company that produces Guinness, Smirnoff and other alcoholic drink brands. Aside from Comcast, all of those companies specialize in alcoholic beverages, a market that has become more volatile as Americans’ drinking preferences shift...

San Francisco Pride has budgeted $3.2 million for its events on the weekend of June 28-29, Ford said, and of that sum, corporate sponsorships are meant to cover $2.3 million. The companies that withdrew represented a combined $300,000 in funding.

Earlier this month, Ford announced that San Francisco Pride was ending its relationship with Meta, the parent company of Facebook. The social media giant recently ended its major diversity, equity and inclusion programs and scaled back its content moderation policies. In an interview with KGO-TV, Ford noted that the nonprofit was pausing its relationships with sponsors that don’t align with San Francisco Pride’s values.

One interpretation is that the "political climate" risks harm to sponsors of LGBTQ programs. A different explanation is that businesses are finally free to say "no" to causes that they felt they had to support because of what could happen if they didn't (see Tesla cars and dealerships for examples). I don't wish ill upon Pride and for their sake hope that a trickle doesn''t become a waterfall.