How To Be An Ally After Pride

Dear straight-led organizations and nonprofit leaders,

June is International Pride Month — a 30-day-long holiday which celebrates LGBTQIA+ arts, culture, community, and history. Your city or hometown likely hosts a Pride festival run by a local LGBTQIA+ community organization. Many corporations, organizations, groups, and even individuals recognize the LGBTQIA+ community in June through events, fundraisers, social media posts, and otherwise. While some of these efforts come off as (because they are) performative and token-izing, others are authentically beneficial. But the majority of these efforts never see the light of day before or after June. Rainbow decor and adornments are torn down, fundraisers dry up, As a queer man myself, I can assure you I exist outside of June 1st to June 30th every year. So, how can you continue to be Ally after Pride?

For Organizations

1. Book a training
   
   LGBTQIA+ cultural competency is important for any type of team or role to understand. The glorious thing about the LGBTQIA+ community is that we are a community of communities, and so we exist everywhere. If your organization is only raising rainbow flags during June, chances are your queer employees, volunteers, clients, and community members will notice.
   
   Trainings can be customized to meet your organization’s specific needs and circumstances and will go a long way in demonstrating your commitment to the continuous journey of being inclusive and welcoming.
   

2. Revisit your organization and employee policies
   
   Make sure your written policies and procedures are documented using inclusive language. Are LGBTQIA+ people seeing your job descriptions? Are your employees protected against discrimination of sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual characteristics, and gender expression? How welcoming are your onboarding procedures for new staff, volunteers, and board members? Does the data you collect include the LGBTQIA+ community? These questions and many more need to be answered and addressed or your organization will come off as phony.
   

3. Conduct an employee and board demographic census
   
   Do you even know if you have LGBTQIA+ employees and board members? Are they comfortable self-identifying? It’s important for an organization to have this knowledge so that you can better serve your teams and better reflect your demographics in grant applications. If nothing else convinces an organization leader, a key driver of innovation, diverse teams produce 19% more revenue than less diverse teams. You need to start with the end in mind — you want LGBTQIA+ staff and board members? You need to understand where you stand first so you can create a clear path of where you need to go.
   

4. Recruit queer board members
   
   If you have a census of your board, whether you conduct one or not, and you don’t have a single queer board member…yikes. Organizations who wish to engage the LGBTQIA+ community in any capacity need to have queer people on their board. Without them, your organization is being governed through the lens of heterosexual people — people who will never fully understand the LGBTQIA+ experience. This is especially important for nonprofits — we serve underserved and marginalized communities. The LGBTQIA+ community is at an intersection of disparities. You need queer board members before you can start raising money from queer people.
   

5. Continue hosting events and fundraisers
   
   We are queer all year long — Pride exists every month. If you’re not located directly in a large metropolis, it’s likely there is a local Pride festival in your area which is hosted outside the month of June. I worked for two LGBT community center and each hosted their own Pride festival in August and October. The state of Pennsylvania has Pride festivals from April through October! Book vendor booths at your region’s festival throughout the year. Queer people will you see there. They will notice.
   
   And if you host your own Pride events and fundraisers, do them outside of Pride Month too. Host them in collaboration with your region’s Pride festivals. Doing this is one of the most significant forms of allyship because 1) you’re recognizing that Pride is all year, and 2) you’re a nonqueer Ally putting in the work!
   

For Individuals

1. Support queer artists and businesses
   
   Queer artists and businesses cannot make a living from the income of a single month. Yes, Pride Month is busy for LGBTQIA+ people — especially queer business owners — but it’s simply not enough. Show your support all year long. Buy your birthday and holiday presents from a queer shop. Promote the social media efforts of a LGBTQIA+ artist whenever you can. Refer your friends and family to support them too.
   

2. Take inventory of where your money is spent
   

   And while we are talking about where your money goes, make sure you aren’t supporting outright anti-LGBTQIA+ organizations, movements, and initiatives. A little goes a long way, and intention is one of our greatest allies.
   

3. Attend regional Pride festivals
   
   As mentioned above, many Pride festivals are hosted outside of the month of June. As someone who has worked for two LGBT community organizations on opposite Coasts, I know that the smaller Prides cannot compete with the large metropolitan festivals. It’s also cheaper to book entertainment outside of June and brings our expenses down. So, look up your local Prides, even those within an hour or two, grab your best Judys, and make a road trip plan! Simply showing up to a festival is so important, especially for smaller Prides.
   

4. Continue the conversations (especially the uncomfortable ones)
   
   The LGBTQIA+ community has historically stood up for itself — Stonewall Riots, HIV epidemic, Trans rights — but we also need allies to stand up for us, especially when we are not in the room. Defending against discrimination in the workplace is perhaps one of the most uncomfortable situations a person can be in, whether it’s correcting someone on the proper pronoun usage or combating harassment. LGBTQIA+ people are vulnerable and need allies who are willing to have the difficult conversations with people who simply don’t understand or are intentionally malicious.
   

5. Be an advocate
   
   Advocate for more inclusive and welcoming systems and practices in your social life (friend groups), at family gatherings, and definitely at work. When advocacy comes from people outside the LGBTQIA+ community, it carries more weight (though it shouldn’t). Nothing is stronger than our collective voices singing in unison for the same justice.

Granted, this is only a list of 10 intentional practices you can implement in your personal and professional life. Allyship goes much further and way deeper, and lasts a lifetime (seriously). Queer For Hire provides trainings, assessments, planning, and delivery to help nonprofits engage the LGBTQIA+ community through hiring, board recruitment, and fundraising, and assists queer professionals achieve career success. We’ve been there, done that, and we’re here for you.

When the LGBTQIA+ community thrives, we all thrive. 

Sincerely,

Queers

Learn about our services and resources for Nonprofits here.

Learn about our services and resources for Professionals here.