Boulder Pride's History Of Accomplishments
In 1994, several community organizations in the City of Boulder collaborated on a series of events to celebrate Gay Pride. This collective was called Boulder Pride. As the LGBTQ community grew, the need for Boulder Pride to broaden its purpose grew as well.
In 1999, Pride became a state tax-exempt organization.
In 2001, Pride received a three year grant from the Gill Foundation to secure a community center and start offering services to the LGBT community.
The Community Center opened officially in 2004 and Pride began offering direct services to LGBT youth in Boulder County.
Through the consistent and dedicated efforts of Boulder Pride’s board, staff, and community, Boulder Pride has steadily grown every year, thus, being able to provide a more diverse array of services and programs to its constituents.
In the past two years, Pride has grown by leaps and bounds. Through grant monies, it has added and secured two new programs, SpeakingOUT and Smoke Free LGBT. Through grants and community support, Pride has continued to grow and expand the scope and diversity of its Youth Empowerment Program.
Through local grant and volunteer support, Pride was very involved in the advocacy efforts of Referendum I, Domestic Partnership Referendum, and helped educate thousands of Coloradans on the discrimination the LGBT faces regarding legal rights and protections. While working on Referendum I, Pride held high visibility rallies, town hall meetings, and garnered lots of media coverage.
Due to increased staff and community involvement, Pride has also greatly expanded the scope and diversity of its events and activities. Through social and educational events of its own and through partnering, Pride now offers 15-20 educational and social events per month. Pride also secured funds to hire its first Community Center Coordinator in 2006 and its first Executive Director in February 2007.
Pride also expanded its board membership by 30% in 2006-2007.
In 2006, Pride developed its first official volunteer program and has appointed a “volunteer” volunteer coordinator to oversee the cultivation and management of the program. With the new Executive Director, building on the successes of its recent accomplishments, Pride has just approved its first ever Capital Campaign plan. To that point, Pride is working to develop a permanent and dedicated community base of donors. As the capstone to a successful year, Boulder Pride was honored in a December cover story, by a local newspaper, the Boulder Weekly, and was chosen from a field of thousands of local organizations, as an organization “on the move” and one “to watch” in 2007.