Delta Foundation to dissolve, citing low revenue
The Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh, a 24-year-old organization whose signature event was the annual Pittsburgh Pride celebration that brought together members and supporters of the LGBTQIA+ community for a Downtown festival, plans to dissolve.
The postponement of Pittsburgh Pride this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty about whether the event could be held in 2021 left the nonprofit without a revenue stream and no means to move forward, board president Martin Healey said.
Nine members of Delta’s board of directors on Saturday voted unanimously to wind down its operations; one board member abstained.
“We looked at a reorganization, but we still needed revenues, and, sadly, with COVID19, there were none,” Mr. Healey said.
Pittsburgh Pride generated more than 90% of Delta’s
annual funding, he said.
The summer event was one of the city’s largest, attracting an estimated 250,000 people last year to Downtown for a weekend that featured a parade, entertainment on multiple stages, food booths, and other activities.
Originally scheduled for July this year, Pittsburgh Pride had been postponed until fall because of the coronavirus crisis. Earlier this month, Delta canceled the event for 2020.
Funds to hold the event — which cost around $800,000, according to Delta’s 2018 federal tax filing — came from sponsorships and sales of concert tickets and beverages.
Whether Pittsburgh Pride will be resurrected by another group is unclear, said Mr. Healey.
“It would be foolish to even be thinking about it while COVID-19 is still happening … and there’s no ability to have an event that large,” he said.
“It’s something yet to be determined and navigated by the good people who advocate for the [LGBTQIA+] community in the region.”
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Sunday he was disappointed about Delta’s pending dissolution and was hopeful Pittsburgh Pride could be held in the future.
“I do think there’s an awful lot of interest in having it,” he said.
“This is an event that grows every year, and we’ve seen more and more public officials, corporations, universities, labor unions and others participating.”
Mr. Fitzgerald said he had heard of some preliminary discussions about other groups trying to revive Pittsburgh Pride, “but it’s probably too early to see,” he said.
The dissolution of Delta comes after a series of challenging issues for the nonprofit.
In January, its former board president, Gary Van Horn, resigned following his arrest on multiple charges, including impersonating emergency responders by using police lights and sirens on his personal vehicle.
Delta conducted an internal investigation of the matter and earlier this month turned its findings over to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office.
Recently, Delta has been the target of criticism from members of the Black transgender community who believe the organization has not been inclusive to its members.
Last week, Black trans rights activists held a protest on the South Side outside the offices of Mr. Healey’s real estate business and called for the foundation to cease operations.
In July, a past interim board president, Jim Sheppard, said in a social media post that Delta was seeking nominations for four additional board seats and wanted to fill them with diverse individuals including members of the transgender and nonbinary communities.
A request to expand the board was never formally presented to the existing board, Mr. Healey said.
He said that while some criticisms of Delta might be fair, they did not push the nonprofit to cease operations.
“The pressure I felt from those groups is sadness for the hurt that they feel from our world and where it is today,” he said. “With COVID-19, we don’t have revenues coming in, and that’s very clear.”
Mr. Healey — who served as a director at Delta in the past and also serves as president of the board of Persad Center, a nonprofit that provides counseling and other supports to members of the
LGBTQ+ community — was asked by Delta’s board just two weeks ago to return and oversee a reorganization.
“The executive committee was working day and night to navigate this … but there was not a path forward,” he said.
In its 2018 federal tax filing, the most recent available, Delta reported net assets of approximately $321,360.
That includes a building it owns on Galveston Street on the North Side where it maintains an office.
The property will be put up for sale, Mr. Healey said.
Delta has only one fulltime employee, Christine Bryan, its director of marketing and development.
The nonprofit’s law firm, Leech Tishman, will work with Delta on the dissolution process.
Mr. Healey hopes other groups that support the LGBTQIA+ community, including Persad and Allies for Health+Wellbeing, can form partnerships to pick up advocacy work that Delta provided.
The foundation was founded in 1996 mainly as a social organization for members of the lesbian and gay communities.
It has never made grants to other organizations; it mainly raised funds for Pittsburgh Pride events.
In 2007, it held the first Pride in the Street concert in Downtown and eventually took over the Pride festival and parade, which had been operated in the past by other organizations.
“We’ve increased the conversation about the LGBTQ community within the city’s corporations so that people can be their authentic selves and be proud of who they are and where they work,” Mr. Healey said.