Nashville Pride lost about 40 percent of its sponsorship dollars this year.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nissan, Cracker Barrel, Dollar General and Jack Daniel’s all sponsored June’s Nashville Pride Festival in previous years, but pulled out of the 2025 iteration.
Most of the sponsors dropped out during the 30 days leading up to the festival, Nashville Pride president Tina Tousignant tells the Scene. By National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, the organization hopes to raise back at least $250,000 of the $270,000 lost in sponsorships. Nashville Pride called the loss an “unprecedented financial crisis” in its 35 years of operation.
While the businesses that sat out Pride this year have said it was due to a lack of funding or change in direction, Tousignant says she can read between the lines.
“They didn’t want to confirm that it was DEI,” she tells the Scene. “Most of them were saying they were restructuring, and it was money that was the issue.”
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In addition to the lost sponsorships, security costs more than doubled this June compared to past festivals, and attendance was down by about 15,000 — likely in large part due to severe weather. But Tousignant says the sponsorships were the largest part of the deficit.
VUMC withdrew standby emergency support one week before the festival — a move that cost Nashville Pride $30,000, the nonprofit confirms, though VUMC declined to comment on the matter. The hospital system also gutted its LGBTQ health programming this year following pressure from U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who echoed an executive order from President Donald Trump demanding that entities receiving federal funding end diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“I’m just generally upset that companies won’t stand up and do the right thing,” Tousignant says. “They cower down and bend the knee to politics and politicians, especially in our state. That’s sad. Vanderbilt is the worst, because they’re here [in Nashville] and they’re a large corporation to help people … and they can’t even stand up for one organization that they’ve been with for years. That’s the disheartening part.”
Nonprofit HIV prevention agency Nashville CARES stepped up, and other locally based corporations stayed on board, including Bridgestone — though the company dropped from the presenting sponsor level for the first time in 11 years — and Journeys. (The Nashville Scene is a media sponsor of Nashville Pride.)
Lebanon-based Cracker Barrel recently saw its stock drop (and later rebound) following the announcement of a new logo and branding. The temporary branding change garnered backlash from right-wing media figures like Robby Starbuck, who accused the company of being “infested with left-wing activists who are more interested in safe spaces, pronouns and virtue signaling than they are in their customers.” Meanwhile, the company quietly withdrew from sponsoring Nashville Pride earlier in the summer.
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In 2023, Lynchburg’s Jack Daniel’s faced similar backlash and boycotting when some of its customers discovered a Pride campaign that the company had been participating in since 2021. Goodlettsville-based Dollar General, which had been involved for at least seven years, and Nissan, a presenting sponsor for four years, forwent communicating about Pride this year altogether. Nissan has faced financial troubles in the past year.
While it operates on a significantly smaller budget than Nashville Pride, Franklin Pride faced a shortfall this year as well. President Clayton Klutts tells the Scene that the organization reached out to some of its sponsors ahead of time to confirm their donation this year, only to find they wouldn’t be returning. Scene sister publication the Williamson Scene reported that Franklin Pride lost 70 percent of funding in 2025, including its largest sponsor.
“It wasn’t a complete surprise,” Klutts says. “Based on the political climate, we proactively reached out to our sponsors just to see how things stood. They were very forthcoming with us.”
Franklin Pride knew about the few organizations that said they’d be dropping sponsorship in fall 2024, but didn’t know if others would pull out before the June celebration. They held a successful fundraising concert in February and asked the community to donate.
“Every little bit helps, and it just proves to us that the business community and our community of members, allies, family and friends are very interested in Franklin Pride and want it to happen and continue to be a success,” Klutts says.
In the first 24 hours of its fundraiser, Nashville Pride raised $30,000. The organization is especially crucial in Tennessee, where bills targeting LGBTQ rights are introduced by state legislators on a yearly basis.
“It’s not just the festival, it’s year-round support for our community,” Tousignant says. “We love standing up and fighting for our community and creating safe spaces for people, and that’s why we decided we have to reach out to the community and tell them what’s going on and let them help us fight to keep our rights and our safety.”
