DENVER — At least two Denver events have been impacted by the loss of corporate sponsorships amid "rollbacks of DEI budgets."
Denver's Juneteenth Music Festival, a traditionally multi-day celebration in the Five Points Historic Cultural District, was forced to scale back to one day due to a significant decline in sponsorships.
In a statement, JMF Corporation, the nonprofit that puts on the festival, said it had to shift its plans "due to financial realities and shifts in sponsorship support."
Norman Harris, executive director of JMF Corp., said donations are down more than 60% from last year's commitments. According to Harris, the nonprofit is $80,000 short of being able to pay for even the smaller, one-day festival.
"Right now, I'd say it's over 60% of what was committed the year before are just not there or have decommitted their sponsorships this year. These are organizations we've had partnerships [with] for over 10 years," Harris told Denver7.
- Read the full statement from the JMF Corporation below
The Juneteenth Music Festival has always been a labor of love, built to honor the spirit of freedom, culture, and community. This year, due to financial realities and shifts in sponsorship support, we made the difficult decision to condense the festival into a one-day celebration.
While we are disappointed we cannot deliver the full multi-day experience our community has come to expect, our priority remains creating an unforgettable, vibrant, and meaningful event that commemorates Juneteenth’s legacy.
Like many community festivals across the country, we are navigating a more challenging funding landscape. Fewer corporate sponsorships and rising production costs made a multi-day format unsustainable this year. Rather than compromise the quality of the experience, we chose to focus all of our energy and resources into one powerful day of celebration.
Even with this shift, we are still facing a funding shortfall of approximately $80,000 to fully cover the costs of the one-day event. We are actively reaching out to the community, local businesses, and supporters for additional financial help to ensure the Juneteenth Music Festival remains a strong, vibrant celebration that honors our history and our future.
We are deeply grateful to our community, artists, vendors, and partners who continue to stand with us. Juneteenth belongs to the people — and together, we will continue to celebrate freedom, resilience, and unity.
Longtime Five Points tour director Charles Foster told Denver7 he was shocked by the festival's format change.
"I was sad, very sad about it, because here we go again," Foster said. "Something else is going to be slashed in terms of historical preservation, in terms of historical education, something I feel that's very, very, very important all of us recognize."
Foster wasn't the only one who wasn't thrilled by the loss of sponsorship support. Franklin Stiger, who has owned a barbershop in the Five Points neighborhood for more than four decades, expressed similar sentiments.
"I think Juneteenth is nice, one of the things that we need to celebrate," Stiger said. "Where's this money going?"
Denver Pride is also feeling the impact of sponsorship loss.
"Denver Pride has experienced a decrease in funding when compared to previous years for our festival, parade, and 5K," said the Center on Colfax, which puts on Denver Pride, in a statement. "Some organizations that have participated in years past have only been able to return at lower levels of sponsorship, and others have even been unable to return entirely due to rollbacks of DEI budgets caused by national legislation."
The center said its funding has dropped by roughly 62%.
“Denver Pride is unique from other pride events of our size in that it is both entirely free to attend and serves as the biggest annual fundraiser for our local LGBTQ+ community center, The Center on Colfax. Eighty-three percent of all contributions to The Center are directed back to our community through the vital programming we offer year-round to our LGBTQ+ community free-of-charge. The decrease in funding we are experiencing puts these critical services at risk, such as mental health support, programming for our trans and gender diverse community, youth, older adults, and more," said Center on Colfax Interim CEO Natalie Zanoni.
A spokesperson said the center is continuing to look for sponsors to make up for the losses.
"We are grateful for our partners who have returned and the members of the LGBTQ+ employee resource groups who have made significant efforts to continue funding us, as this allows us to keep Denver Pride an accessible, free event for our community," their statement continues.
Denverites like Charles Foster and Franklin Stiger said hoping for the best is all they can do.
"It's very important to bring people into this neighborhood because, again, it brings a positive highlight in this area," Foster said.
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