San Diego LGBT Pride’s rain-soaked 2015 music festival fell short of generating enough revenue to cover expenses, to the approximate tune of $200,000 – that’s why this year’s event will be covered by rain insurance, says the organization’s top administrator.
“We will have rain insurance this year,” said executive director, Stephen Whitburn in response to a question from San Diego LGBT Weekly at Pride’s annual public board meeting.
“You know rain insurance is very expensive,” Whitburn continued, agreeing that because 2016 is predicted to be a particularly strong El Niño year, it will be worth spending about $7,000 of the organization’s $1.7 million budget on coverage to mitigate the risk of losing revenues because of bad weather.
“We make every effort to use the community’s money wisely, but I think it’s an investment we have to make,” he said.
“We’re going to use about $200,000 of our reserves,” Whitburn told LGBT Weekly. “And thank God we had board members who had the foresight years ago, including the current board, to build up our reserves. I mean it’s not a good thing that happened, but the organization is financially sound.”
Whitburn tells LGBT Weekly that Pride still has enough in reserves to cover more than one similar shortfall. But he notes, it won’t be needed because rain insurance is an investment the organization will make regardless of the cost – at least this year.
“If you want an indication of how meaningful San Diego Pride really is to all of us, the fact that 20,000 people turned out in the rain to the festival is an indicator of how much it means to the community,” he continued, adding that Australian entertainer, Ruby Rose and alternative hip-hop star Big Freedia drew large crowds in spite of the storm.
Whitburn’s pride about the number of people who braved the wet weather at Balboa Park last July in order to take in his organization’s music festival is buttressed by the fact that expected headliner, former supermodel, dancer and pop diva, Carmen Electra was a no-show. However, Whitburn did not mention Electra during his remarks at the annual board meeting.
“It was so gratifying to see people in the rain, continuing to have a good time, laughing along the parade route, dancing in the rain and on the stages at the festival,” he said.
Board diversity: A nagging issue
There was universal acknowledgment at Wednesday’s annual public meeting of Pride’s board of directors that the current board more closely resembles the racial, cultural and gender diversity of the community it serves than in years past.
There was, however, vocal criticism from more than one member of the public in attendance, and insistence that the organization could do more to improve diversity among its slate of directors.
“The San Diego Pride board is led by a female co-chair, a male co-chair, a secretary and a treasurer,” Whitburn told LGBT Weekly Monday. “The current female co-chair is bi-racial – African American and Latina. The male co-chair is Asian Pacific-Islander; the secretary is Latino and the treasurer is Caucasian.”
Overall, says Whitburn a majority of Pride’s 11 board members are people of color. Forty-five percent identify as gay, 36 percent as lesbian, nine percent bisexual and nine percent say they’re straight.
“As for age, 45 percent are under 40,” continued Whitburn. “Twenty-seven percent are between 40 and 65, while another 27 percent are over 65.”
Nevertheless, perceived or actual lack of diversity on Pride’s board of directors has long been a source of frustration among some members of the local LGBT and allied communities. Like their predecessors before them experienced in years past, current board members found themselves playing defense at last week’s meeting, which convened in the main hall of the San Diego LGBT Community Center.
Asked by San Diego LGBT Weekly about rumors that the board was considering disbanding its Community Advisory Committee, a group originally formed to ensure better racial and cultural diversity, one member of Pride’s directors confirmed that the board was considering such a move.
“That was just an idea that was being talked about,” he said. “No decision has been made to ‘disband’ the committee, if that’s how you want to put it.”
The reason board members gave for considering disbanding the committee was lack of commitment among its members, as well as alleged lack of follow-through on projects.
Local activist and LGBT Weekly columnist, Nicole Murray Ramirez stood up at the meeting to insist the board reinvigorate the committee. Ramirez reminded the board that the advisory committee’s original purpose was to foster greater board diversity.
“I’m the one who proposed the Community Advisory Board,” said Ramirez. “And this board does not have the right to change the purpose of the advisory board. In 2010 it was a commitment that you represent the diversity of the community.”
Plethora of volunteers
Attracting volunteers, especially at Pride’s signature summertime events, is not a problem for the organization. More than half of the crowd raised hands when asked who among them had volunteered last year.
San Diegan Edward Condreay, 32, is a Pride volunteer and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.
“I’m the front gate manager for the festival,” Condreay told LGBT Weekly. “I’ll be ensuring nothing goes into the festival that shouldn’t be going in, so that everyone can have a fun and safe time.”
He says he’ll use skills he learned in the U.S. Marine Corps to be firm and respectful at the festival’s front gate this year. Condreay’s boyfriend, 22-year-old fellow Marine, Chris Frick will also be assigned to the festival’s front gate.
“I always love volunteering,” said Frick, an Eagle Scout as well as an active-duty Marine. “Community relations have not only always been a part of my active-duty career, but even prior to the military; I was always helping out the community, always looking for that volunteer opportunity.”
According to Pride, there is a misconception that its production team is mostly comprised of gay males. In fact, nearly 30 percent of its volunteers in 2015 identified as “straight,” while nearly 60 percent were female.
However, the organization believes the five percent figure its surveys reveal as the number of transgender volunteers it has is likely skewed lower because some trans volunteers simply identify as either male or female.
‘Pride Unites the World’
Building on the popularity of its second annual Pride World Forum, convened in August of last year with 24 LGBT activists from around the globe, this year San Diego LGBT Pride will theme its parade and festival under the banner, “Pride Unites the World.”
According to Whitburn and Pride Director of Operations Fernando Lopez, the local region’s LGBT community has been particularly effective in bringing together gender and sexual minorities from countries around the world, helping them find new power toward achieving greater acceptance and equality.
Beyond the parade
Whitburn took the opportunity presented by Pride’s annual public meeting to note some of the ways the group benefitted the community last year, beyond organizing a summertime LGBT Pride parade and music festival. Not least among those benefits was 400 hours of meeting space Pride provided free of charge to local non-profit organizations and charitable efforts.
“The market value of that was $15,000,” Whitburn said.
San Diego LGBT Pride donated a $1,000 grant to the Balboa Park Conservancy in 2015. According to Lopez, Pride was also instrumental in helping San Diego Unified School District come closer to meeting its state-mandated cultural-competency obligations in 2015 with respect to educating its faculty and student body about LGBT culture and history.
“For the first time, just a couple of weeks ago, San Diego Unified School District hired its very-first LGBT-resource teacher,” said Lopez.
Lopez says the school district is creating a second position focused on promulgating LGBT education in the schools, this one more administrative in nature.
“We asked for one position, we got two,” Lopez said.
This year San Diego LGBT Pride will host a free community-services venue situated in front of the festival entrance. A ticket to the 2016 festival will set goers back a mere $15.
