Financial struggles threaten to close Michigan’s oldest LGBTQ+ community center

For 38 years, the Grand Rapids Pride Center has been a mainstay and vital resource for the LGBTQ+ community in west Michigan. But declining funding, from individual donations to corporate sponsorships, means they may be forced to close for good at the end of the year. 

On Sept. 29, executive director Jazz McKinney posted an emotional message to the Grand Rapids Pride Center Facebook page. With only two months of operating expenses in reserve, Michigan’s oldest LGBTQ+ community center was on track to close by Thanksgiving without immediate financial intervention. Since then, an online fundraiser has raised enough money to keep the center open until Christmas.

“It’s really been something I’ve been paying attention to for the last year,” said McKinney, who uses they/them pronouns. “I started off with six months of reserves and savings this year and I saw that kind of starting to dwindle.” 

McKinney said that’s not unusual. In the first quarter, the center starts preparing for Grand Rapids Pride by putting down deposits for expenses like entertainment and venue rentals. By the second quarter, they usually end up financially ahead after Pride, held this year June 20 and 21.

This year was different. Between the loss of grants, sponsorships and other funding, “I was just kind of noticing that we were just kind of flipped,” McKinney told Michigan Advance.

In addition, a flood kept the building closed for three months, from March until early June. Although they held office hours and had temporary space, McKinney said their efforts were focused largely on reopening the center when they would otherwise be writing more grant applications and seeking sponsorships for an upcoming fundraiser, their largest of the year.

McKinney explained how the federal funding picture, which has been hostile toward the LGBTQ+ community, affects the center indirectly. “It didn’t have an impact on us necessarily directly because we didn’t have any federal funds,” they said. “I’ve tried to keep us away beforehand from federal funds because I kind of saw this happening the first go round of this presidency.”

Instead, McKinney said, the center has felt the effects indirectly through community partners, corporate sponsors and other nonprofits.

“That’s where we really start to see some of the trickle down effect,” McKinney said. “Maybe we weren’t getting certain sponsors because their DEI dollars got cut. For instance, we just got denied for a grant through a partner that normally worked with us because they receive federal funds. In order to receive the grant, we had to agree to follow Executive Order 14151, which is essentially the order that says that there’s only two sexes.”

That former partner, Blue Cross Blue Shield, also provides health insurance to McKinney and the center’s staff. After a partnership that spanned 10 years, the insurance company had to change its rules of engagement in order to keep the money it receive from the federal government. 

The relative success of the online fundraiser (more than $62,000 from 500-plus donors as of Oct. 23) buys time for McKinney and the center. One month of operating expenses costs about $70,000.

“I didn’t go into this thinking that the online fundraiser would be the end all be all,” McKinney said. “It was a bridge to help bridge the gap so that I can continue to work on the bigger things. It helps me to get us to the point that I can continue to do my job, which is to make us sustainable.”

Denise Spivak is executive director of CenterLink, an umbrella organization for LGBTQ+ community centers. She said the Grand Rapids Pride Center is not alone. A small number — perhaps 1% to 2% — of LGBTQ+ community centers, have been forced to close for financial reasons in the past two years; separately, some are taking a pause.

“There’s been a marked decrease [in funding] sector-wide,” Spivak told the Advance, “but especially when we’re talking about community centers, thankfully, LGBTQ community centers have always been incredibly resilient. They’re fighting tooth and nail and they’re gonna do everything they can to stay open. And as we’ve seen with Grand Rapids, communities are stepping up and really helping in that fight.”

Spivak called out corporate sponsors that have abandoned the queer community. “We saw that massive rollback on corporations, that suddenly I guess it wasn’t trendy or cool or I don’t know what happened, but suddenly many of the friends that we had, sort of ghosted us as a community—and that was very unfortunate,” Spivak said.

McKinney expressed gratitude to the donors and the outpouring of support. “I think that’s what the government or whoever is scared of, right? They’re doing everything they can to break us down and make us tired and all the things and make it so that we can’t work together.”

McKinney said losing the center would mean “the loss of support for everybody, really. It’s the loss of life-giving services. We are supporting people all throughout their life cycle, from the most dire times, if you will, to celebrating some of their biggest accomplishments.”

“We start serving kids as young as eight years old and we have a group that’s dedicated to elders. We’re serving basic needs. On the other side too, we’re pushing policies, we’re pushing to make sure that our community is heard and seen. And so we would lose all of that in our community,” McKinney said.

It would also mean the loss of the Grand Rapids Trans Foundation, a separate organization established in 2015 and housed within the center. In August, a month before McKinney’s announcement, executive director Ximón Kittok posted a Facebook video to share that the foundation was in desperate need of operating funds. McKinney had planned to make their announcement later and both executive directors emphasized they don’t want the two nonprofits to compete for individual donation dollars.

With a staff of six, the Grand Rapids Pride Center serves LGBTQ+ people in 10 counties and offers dozens of groups each week. Special fundraising events this month include The Luminary Crown, held Oct. 24 and the Prism Awards, set for Oct. 30.

McKinney, who has led the organization since 2020, remains hopeful about the center’s future.

“A lot of people would be losing lifesaving services and life-altering services, and people could literally lose their lives,” McKinney said. “You know, sometimes people are coming to us as their last hope. That’s their only hope for whatever services they’re coming to us for.

“I think our community will band together and figure it out. I think that’s the joy of our community.”