San Francisco’s Pride is a beacon to the worldwide LGBTQIA+ community.

People worldwide come for the parties and the big parade finale.

But in 2022, organizers feared NO ONE would return to the first in-person Pride since COVID:

In-fighting over police officers marching in uniform had weakened funding;

Resulting bad press sapped expected attendance numbers;

And right-wing groups promised to target the event with violent attacks.

But... we turned things around!

We brokered a compromise with police, increased funding by 2,000%, and responded to violence with a crisis control plan.

Over one million attended, including +500,000 for the parade.

After a two-year hiatus, the triumphant return of San Francisco Pride’s live celebrations became shrouded in controversy.

The reason?

A decision publicly announced prohibiting uniformed and armed police officers from marching in the 2022 SF Pride Parade.

Repercussions from the decision, followed by an onslaught of controversial news and threats targeting the LGTBQ+ community, prompted the resignation of SF Pride’s internal PR team.

This left the Pride committee with an onslaught of unanswered press inquiries and no communications support for one of the country’s largest Pride celebrations – just weeks before its main event. ​

The controversy wiped out fundraising.

Boston’s Pride Group dissolved over a similar situation, effectively canceling their parade.

Our objectives:

Develop and promote an agreement to make everyone happy;

Energize sponsors and donations;

Communicate that this Pride would be fun;

Diffuse any crisis; and

Position SF Pride as a beacon for a weary worldwide LGBTQIA+ community.

We needed a creative solution to bring together the two sides.

One camp thought it was wrong to include uniformed officers after the police brutality exposed by Black Lives Matter.

The other didn’t want to roll back progress between police and the LGBTQIA+ community.

Our idea: create a bridge built on two planks both groups respected: history and research.

We surveyed +1,500 Americans: 25% believed police should be allowed to march; 52% wanted police to wear special t-shirts; 29% wanted police to wear official uniforms.

People wanted police there, but with guardrails.

Our compromise: Uniformed officers would march in a special contingent; officers bound to wear a uniform could do so; other police would wear casual clothes.

We argued this acknowledged Pride’s history and future.

Pride commemorated the 1969 Stonewall riot when LGBTQIA+ people stood up to systemic police harassment.

But it also represented an opportunity to build bridges.

We recommended a joint statement acknowledging Pride’s history, with the aim of bringing the community together. Once police and community organizations reached an agreement, we would pitch the story to local and national outlets to ensure attendees and sponsors knew a compromise had been reached.

A rolling announcement calendar of headliners would help turn the page from the police uniform controversy and focus on building attendance.

We positioned Martha Wash headlining this year’s pride as a pivotal news event. The San Francisco native rose to fame with the song “It’s Raining Men,” which would turn 40 this year.

On June 13th - less than two weeks before the main Pride event - a group of far-right Proud Boys stormed a Drag Queen Story Hour at a nearby library. Since our research showed San Francisco was a right-wing target, we flew in a full crisis communications team on site.

On June 2nd, the San Francisco Chronicle broke the news: “Compromise between S.F. police, Pride Parade allows small number of officers to march in uniform.”

The team secured an opportunity with CNN, which quoted our joint statement: “Pride grew out of conflicts between LGBTQ communities and police at Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall Inn. Ever since then, we have attempted to bridge that divide.”

PR secured 173 stories in less than 30 days, turning sentiment around.

PRWeek published a case study, noting: “The firm helped to negotiate a compromise with city police, as well as promoting the event.”

On the finale of Pride, a person sprayed mace right by the main stage. Social media erupted with rumors about gunshots. PR jumped into action with a crisis control command center to get the story under control.

It worked, with the team quickly diffusing the situation through a statement posted to social media.

Over one million attended the event, with +500,000 at the parade.

This surpassed expectations for our first post-COVID event, which had been mired in controversy.

“We were very alarmed that the future of San Francisco Pride was at stake,” said SF Pride’s Suzanne Ford. “PR was essential in fundraising,”

“Four months before the event, we only had $100,000 committed. In the same amount of time, [PR] helped us on a national level raise $1.9 million.”

PR secured 173 stories in less than 30 days, turning sentiment around with positive articles in local and national press. Media reports shifted from reporting on the controversy to focusing on the excitement and the togetherness of the LGBTQIA+ community.

More people engaged and shared content about SF Pride than last year across all key platforms. Total volume shot up 173%. More than 2,831 unique authors joined the cause, up 36,793% over the previous year. Engagements rose 772%, and impressions skyrocketed to 53,407%, surpassing over 1.1B. Sentiment was overwhelmingly positive.

Americans declared San Francisco to be the No. 1 city most famous for its Pride. And most Americans (51.4%) say they’ve either been to a Pride event or plan to attend.

This program led to SF Pride and San Francisco Police Officers Pride Alliance hosting community discussions to bring the LGBTQIA+ community and officers closer together.

SF Pride asked the PR team to become their first full-time agency of record to ensure that Pride 2023 is even better.

It’s a frightening time for the LGBTQIA+ community in the USA.

Conservatives on the Supreme Court plan to reverse same-sex marriage.

Conservatives on the street are physically attacking queer people to prove themselves.

Pride rallies the LGBTQIA+ community to create awareness of these problems and harness the energy necessary to fight them.

“The importance of San Francisco Pride transcends San Francisco,” said SF Pride's Suzanne Ford.

“We were in contact with people in Ukraine. We asked, ‘Should we be having Pride when you’re facing what you’re facing?’ And they said it means something to the whole world. I should know: Growing up as a kid in Kentucky in the 70’s I would watch TV news programs that would show San Francisco Pride just to shock people. But I just thought if I could get to San Francisco, I could find my people someday. We know how important it is.”