Twin Cities Pride asked Target not to participate this year, while some Black business owners are asking people not to shop at the retailer.
MINNEAPOLIS — Andi Otto never imagined he’d be in the position of turning away sponsorship money from Target.
Late last week, the executive director of Twin Cities Pride was doing the exact opposite. Otto says he sent his yearly email to inquire about the level of sponsorship support the local corporation would be committing to this year’s celebration.
“I got an email back the next morning saying, ‘Hey, do you have a second to talk?'” Otto says. “I could tell it was urgent, so I called and while I was on the phone, it literally came across the news.”
Otto is referring to the news that Target would join rival Walmart and several other prominent American brands in scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have come under attack from conservative activists and the White House.
For years Target helped lead corporate America’s embrace of LGBTQ rights and inclusion, and after the murder of George Floyd, it made major investments into black-owned businesses.
At first, Otto says the local retailing giant tried to reassure him.
“Target came and said, this is what is happening, it does not change our support for Twin Cities Pride and being there, we’re still committed to that,” Otto said.
But with support among the LGBTQ community already strained by Target’s decision to pull back some Pride merchandise in recent years, Otto said the decision to drop DEI efforts right now forced the board of Twin Cities Pride not to return that commitment.
Otto: “The right decision was to do what our community was asking us to, and that was to ask them not to participate.”
Erdahl: “How big of a decision is that?”
Otto: “It’s a $50,000 decision. Target was a $50,000 sponsor, they were our second largest sponsor.”
Otto says that money doesn’t just help fund one of the nation’s biggest parades and free festivals, but also regional celebrations and programming. He’s unsure where they will make up for the lost money — including another sponsorship deal they terminated with Walmart for the same reason — but he remains confident they will move forward.
“Am I concerned? Absolutely,” he said. “Just in a matter of a week we’ve seen companies do it, but after the decision, we started a fundraising page. In less than 24 hours we’re over $20,000, and we’ve already made up a portion of that $50K that we were missing.
We’ve also received support from other partners. Delta is our biggest sponsor and is standing with us full force, so we have other ones who continue to do the same.
“This is bigger than a donation. This is bigger than just changing a policy. This impacts people’s lives,” he said. “We have to stand up. If we’re going to be an ally, we need to be an ally, even when it’s tough.”
“I’m not shopping at Target”
Sheletta Brundidge, who owns the ShelettaMakesMeLaugh.com podcast network, wrote an op-ed just last month advocating for customers to take their business to Target after Walmart announced that it was pulling it’s DEI programs.
Needless to say, she didn’t expect to be advocating for a Target boycott just weeks later.
“The only power I have is my buying power, and Black women have a tremendous amount of power with their dollars,” Brundidge said. “I’m heartbroken. I was one of the small businesses that benefitted from the initiatives that Target implemented after George Floyd died.”
Brudidge says Target’s decision to advertise with her podcast network, gave her a huge boost financially and opened the door to many more possibilities.
“You talk about a sense of Pride, we were all celebrating,” she said. “Not only that, it validated me for other companies. When General Mills and Comcast and United Healthcare and any number of other companies say that I was working with Target, they thought, ‘Oh, well if Target can trust her, so can we.'”
She says that trust also helped her land a $10,000 sponsorship from Amazon for her Black Entrepreneurs day at the state capitol next week, which was supposed to help fund a scholarship and transport business owners from around the state. But because Amazon also announced the end of it’s DEI program, she has now declined that money.
“I’ll figure that out and take the hit,” she said. “I gotta do what I gotta do, because I have 500 people coming to the capitol who trust me and I need them to know that I can’t be bought and sold. I have to stand on my word and my integrity and what I believe and my company is built and based on celebrating and uplifting black people.”
Though some say a Target boycott will also harm the Black businesses that are still on the retailer’s shelves, Brundidge pushes back.
“Find those suppliers on their own website, buy from them there,” Brundidge said. “Find another store that’s selling their products. When Dr. King said don’t get on the bus. Nobody was on the bus. They stood together in solidarity. Because it’s not about me, it’s about we.”