The queer community was stunned last week by news that the Pride Center of Vermont is closing indefinitely in the face of serious financial problems.
A statement from the nonprofit’s board of directors blamed a “critical funding shortfall” and said it will embark on an emergency fundraising campaign in hopes of eventually reopening the center.
The abrupt closure blindsided the nonprofit’s seven staff members, who learned about it only a few hours before the public did. And it raised questions about how a valued community resource — one of the biggest LGBTQ organizations in the state — could go belly-up with little warning.
“We’re still trying to catch up to the news,” Dana Kaplan, executive director of Outright Vermont, said last Friday. His organization supports LGBTQ youth. “It was a very sudden announcement without a lot of specificity on what the plan is moving forward, as well as what happened.”
Founded in 1999, the Pride Center reaches thousands of LGBTQ people annually through programs, support groups, and its annual Pride Parade & Festival, held every September in the Queen City, where the center is based.
“A pillar of the Vermont queer community doesn’t sink overnight.”
Monica Allard
While its services remain in high demand, a “perfect storm” of challenges has been brewing for years, according to board cochair Monica Allard.
“A pillar of the Vermont queer community doesn’t sink overnight,” Allard said. The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont attorney joined the center’s board nearly two years ago and is one of its longest-tenured members.
After multiple years of losing money, the center took out loans worth about $175,000 in 2020. It has since struggled to pay down its debt amid lackluster philanthropic support and unreliable grant funding.
In May, the center learned it will no longer receive a state-administered federal grant for its HIV programs. The grant of nearly $200,000 represented about 25 percent of the center’s annual revenue and had been used to help pay four staff members, Allard said.
“We made an appeal to the community when we lost that HIV funding,” Allard said. “We also explored other options to reduce our overhead and operating expenses and to apply for additional funding.”
But the center could not close the gap, Allard said, and by last week, it was clear the organization could no longer juggle its debt payments and day-to-day expenses. The board notified staff last Thursday that the center would close effective Friday and issued a public statement several hours later.
“The board really wishes that there had been more time, and that’s something we have to take responsibility for,” Allard said.
The center’s financial challenges have played out amid tensions over political stances taken by its staff.
In March 2024, three members of the nonprofit’s board resigned following a statement the center’s staff released about the war in Gaza. The board members, all Jewish, said they were ignored and silenced when they tried to raise concerns about the statement, which they felt marked an inappropriate departure from the center’s mission. Staff responded by accusing the board members of “ongoing patterns of harm” that included persistent misgendering of staff and racial microaggressions.
Then, in May 2024, Burlington resident Isaac Dayno learned that he was no longer welcome to participate in a Pride panel the following month because the center’s staff had learned he worked for the Department of Corrections. Dayno, who works in the DOC’s communications department, was scheduled to co-facilitate the panel in his personal capacity and planned to speak about his experiences organizing on LGBTQ issues such as fighting a North Carolina bathroom bill.
He requested to meet with the center’s staff to discuss the decision and said he was told that no DOC employees would be welcome at the event.
He followed up in an email to express his disappointment. “Being queer has not always been easy, and at times particularly painful,” he wrote. “It has been in these moments I find support and comfort in the LGBTQ+ community, a community that celebrates diversity and inclusion. It saddens me that this year the Pride Center’s actions do not reflect those ideals.”
The Vermont State Employees’ Association decided that it would no longer sponsor nor participate in the Pride parade because of the center’s stance toward DOC employees, according to the union’s executive director, Steve Howard.
Dayno was not surprised to learn about the center’s closure. “That kind of behavior — of determining insiders and outsiders and who is worthy of belonging to this community — is really damaging,” Dayno said. Vermont’s queer community is only so large, he added: “After a while, who is left?”
On Monday, the nonprofit’s board said in a statement that laid-off staff would be paid for up to two weeks of accrued time off in addition to receiving health care benefits through the end of October at minimum. At least two staffers have created GoFundMe campaigns that have amassed thousands of dollars in donations.
“We recognize that this does not provide enough support for some staff and are exploring additional ways to reduce the harm of this sudden crisis,” reads the statement. It goes on to say the board is working “around the clock” to conduct a “full financial assessment, evaluate what went wrong, and create a roadmap forward.”
Any path to reopening would need to include a substantial cash infusion. Allard said last week that the board hopes to raise $350,000, which would allow it to clear the center’s debts and “move forward in a more financially responsible way.”
“It would be a reset,” she said.
The board raised about $50,000 over the weekend, mostly from small donors, according to Allard. Ben & Jerry’s has also agreed to match up to $10,000 in donations to support the center.
The board’s statement released on Monday sounds an optimistic note. It reads: “The outpouring of support has given us hope that the Center can be relaunched in the future with stronger accountability, governance and sustainability from the ground up.”
This article appears in Oct 15-21 2025.
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