Dublin Pride 2022 is scheduled to take place between June 22nd – 26th this month. The event attracts a huge amount of private funding and this year is no exception.
Dublin Pride describes itself as “a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to raising awareness of the discrimination faced by LGBTQ+ people, promoting diversity and inclusion in society and championing equality for all people.” The Pride festival is said to be the biggest fundraising event for lgbt+ organisations, including itself, in Ireland.
It offers businesses the chance to become “pride partners” saying:
“Annual Partnership fees are €1,500 (€500 for small businesses) and include logo placement on our website and 1 team training sessions from our Pride at Work programme”
This year’s list of private funding is a veritable who’s who of household names and state bodies including,
‘RTE, An Post, Sky, Tesco, TFI, FM 104, Q102, AXA, FaceBook, PayPal, Groupon, Adobe, Amazon, Brinks, Irish Life, Carroll’s, MasterCard, Johnson & Johnson, Dell, Bord Gais, IBM, Ebay, Zurich, Virgin Media, Coillte, ESB, Bus Eireann, Dublin Bus, Ulster Bank, Twitter, Permanent TSB, IKEA, 123.ie, Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, CitiBank, Penneys, RSA, Deutsche Bank, Nestle and many more.
Gript Media contacted Dublin Pride to inquire whether donors are eligible for tax breaks, however we did not receive an answer. We also looked for records of monies donated to Dublin Pride by its many sponsors, but were unable to locate any records specific to individual donors or amounts.
An article on Dublin Pride’s website, entitled ‘The Power of Philanthropy’ points out that corporate funding has helped to drive much of the social change in Ireland in recent years in relation to LGBT issues.
Atlantic Philanthropies, a vehicle for change founded by billionaire Chuck Feeney, gave €63 million to fund campaign groups in Ireland working on legalising same-sex marriage and on supporting change such as the Gender Recognition measures which now permit any person to change sex by making a declaration of intent. The corporate funding played a “pivotal role”, the article says.
The Community Foundation of Ireland describes itself as “An LGBTI Ally for 21 Years” and has reportedly donated over 1 million to lgbtq+ groups since its establishment. The organisation says that approved bodies may be eligible for a 31% ‘blended’ tax discount on donations.
It further states that “An annual limit of €1 million per individual can be relieved under the revised scheme and donations under the scheme are no longer subject to the higher earner restriction.”
Here is a sample of the list of Pride donors for 2022.
Some of the names on the list might be the kind of organisations that at first glance don’t really seem to have many obvious links to a gay pride event, but perhaps the preception of social desirability points for having one’s enterprise associated to a popular event may play a part.
Having your product logo emblazoned on a float or flags in a parade viewed by tens of thousands of people is, if nothing more, a clever marketing ploy.
Despite there being no legal obstacles to the participation of lgbt+ people in Irish society, an organisation exists which monitors and rates Ireland on its level of inclusiveness.
The Stonewall organisation states its mission as standing for ‘lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, questioning and ace (LGBTQ+) people everywhere’. Companies who donate to the organisation can have their names added to a list of ‘inclusive workplaces’, and are offered the chance to assess their progress on lgbt+ inclusion, become a ‘stonewall champion’, book workplace training, and attend ‘network group masterclasses’ on inclusion.
The organisation classes Ireland as a zone 1 area for inclusivity of lgbt+ individuals due to the legal nature of same sex sexual activity and our protections for lgbt+ people in the work place.
Stonewall writes on its website that, “The best employers understand why all their employees should feel welcome, respected and represented at work.” Saying such employers “know that inclusion drives better individual, business and organisational outcomes,” and that, “when LGBTQ+ employees feel free to be themselves, everybody benefits.”
In 2019 the organisation reports it received £1,046,568 in grants from corporate entities including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Comic Relief, Department of Education (UK), NHS Scotland, Santander UK Foundation Ltd., The Big Lottery Fund, Monument Trust, and more.
The seeming invasion of corporate and state entities into the lgbt+ arena hasn’t gone unnoticed by members of the community itself:
In 2019 GCN reported that Queer Action Ireland organized an ‘alternative pride’ event inviting “all queers who cannot accept the current state of Dublin Pride” saying that the main event had become “sanitised and assimilated”.
GCN also reported QAI as stating its opposition to Garda participation in the Pride parade, which started in 2014, alleging that “The police continue to target LGBTQ+ people, sex workers, migrant and other ethnic minority people in Ireland today.”
The Irish Times reported that 60,000 people took part in the 2018 Pride event, and that many corporate names, such as Indeed, Facebook, and Aer Lingus, had ‘elaborate flags’ while many businesses ‘set up tents on Smithfield Square’ where the closing party of the event took place. At that event Queer Action Ireland reportedly displayed a banner saying “Queer liberation, no corporations”, while chanting, “You only gave us rights ’cos we gave you riots.”