Here Are The Pride Collections That Actually Benefit LGBTQ Communities
Image: Nike
We’re pretty much halfway through 2020 and it feels like we should at least be near Christmas. In the last six months, we’ve seen floods, fires, and other international disasters, a global pandemic that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and the senseless deaths of Black people across this nation that has finally led to a social reckoning. With all of the aforementioned, Pride 2020 has seemed to fade a bit into the backdrop. But alas, there are some bright spots in the six months of revolution. Juneteenth, the holiday many of us have been quietly celebrating for years was finally thrust into the national conversation and Pride month continues to be a month long reminder of the incredible history housed in the LGBTQ community.
On what was once just a day at New York’s Stonewall Inn in 1969, whereby queer people (predominantly from Black, brown, and trans communities) defied authority and issued their own resistance, protests became a for call to action for those in the LGBTQ+ community. Sadly, much of this history gets lost in the commercialization of the month in which many brands slap a Pride flag on products without much transparency about who actually will benefit from the products they push.
So how do we determine the companies who only seek to benefit vs. those who actually utilize their Pride products to give back to the cause they capsulize? With information.
Below, we’ve highlighted a few of the Pride collections that reveal exactly where your dollars are going and what they’ll be used for. If we’re looking at silver linings of 2020, we’re putting new levels of corporate transparency in the top 10.
The Who: Nike aka The Swoosh
The Receipts: This year, Nike has contributed more than $500,000 to 29 organizations serving the LGBTQIA+ community. This includes 20 organizations each receiving $25,000 grants administered by the Charities Aid Foundation of America, some of whom also received grants last year as part of Nike’s effort to promote a continuous allyship to LGBTQ+ organizations.
Nike will also award grants to organizations serving the LGBTQIA+ community in countries around the world including Nijiiro Diversity (Japan’s first non-profit organization to take on issues of LGBTQ+ discrimination in the workplace) and ReBit, a non-profit organization in Tokyo that aims to create a society in which all LGBT children can become adults as they are.
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The Who: Converse
The Receipts: The canvas sneaker company has dropped a 2020 Pride Collection, which will benefit the It Gets Better Project, Ali Forney Center, BAGLY, and OUT MetroWest. To date, Converse has donated $1,000,000 in support of local and global LGBTQIA+ organizations.
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The Who: Levi’s
The Receipts: 100 percent of net proceeds from Levi’s Pride 2020 collection will go to OutRight Action International.
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The Who: Uggs
The Receipts: The footwear company launched an all-gender Pride Fluff Yeah sandal collection that will be sold year-round and has committed to donating $125,000 to GLAAD.
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The Who: Calvin Klein
The Receipts: In 2020, Calvin Klein has donated over $100,000 USD to LGBTQ non-profit organizations, including the onePULSE Foundation, to which Calvin Klein’s parent company, PVH has made a $1 million grant through the PVH Foundation.
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The Who: Happy Socks
The Receipts: The specialty sock company has partnered with gender-free brand The Phluid Project to create a collection for both adults and children. Happy Socks and The Phluid Project are allocating 10% of each net sale from the collection to the The Trevor Project—the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for the LGBTQ community.