Pride Toronto faces a shaky future after two more corporate sponsors pulled their support for the festival just days before the beginning of Pride Month.
The organization says it’s facing a $700,000 funding shortfall as a result of sponsors who have chosen not to return to the 2025 festival or reduced their contributions.
“This is a wake-up call for us,” Pride Toronto’s Executive Director Kojo Sherwin Modeste told CityNews. “The individuals and institutions we believed were committed allies to our community have shown themselves to be, at least in part, swayed by external political pressures.”
“That’s deeply disappointing; not just for our organization, but for the communities we serve,” he explained.
Pride Toronto first started ringing alarm bells about its financial woes in February 2025, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“Since the election in the U.S. and some of the executive orders that came out, we have received notice from a few of our sponsors that there is a shift in direction, and as a result, they will not be coming back as sponsors,” Modeste said earlier this year.
On the first day of Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States, he signed an executive order titled, “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.”
The directive immediately terminated all policies and activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion, including federal grants and contracts for companies with related programs.
Since then, a string of U.S. tech giants, including Meta, Amazon and Google have scrapped DEI initiatives. The trend has also elicited similar moves from Canadian companies, like Shopify and Molson Coors.
Modeste previously refused to name the companies who pulled their support from the festival, but now he isn’t holding back.
“It’s true that we’ve recently lost additional sponsorship support from both Home Depot and Google, an unfortunate development that compounds an already challenging year for us,” he explained.
“Pride has never been easy or convenient; it is about visibility, equity, and justice – even when it’s politically unpopular,” he added. “We remain committed to those principles. And we’re calling on partners, new and longstanding, to show that their support is not conditional.”
When asked about its decision to pull funding from Pride Toronto, a spokesperson for Home Depot told CityNews, “We work with an extensive network of nonprofits made up of thousands of local and national organizations to amplify our support to the communities we serve. We continually review our nonprofit giving and decided not to contribute to this event this year with no agreement in place to do so. We continue to participate in Pride activities throughout Canada and look forward to working with Toronto Pride on future opportunities.”
A representative for Google did not respond to a request for comment.
Pride Toronto says it’s working to urgently address the six-figure funding gap and intends to push forward.
“Our festival will go on,” Modeste said. “It may look different in some ways, but its spirit remains rooted in resilience, fueled by the community we serve.”
