Pullman Pride
Northwest's Client Success Stories
Pullman Pride
Pullman Pride 2024 was a huge success! Held on Saturday, June 1st, Pullman’s first major Pride event celebrated the town’s LGBTQIA+ population in a showcase of civic spirit. Members of the Palouse queer community and their allies showed up to celebrate with support by businesses, community groups, nonprofits, and local artists and musicians at a host of booths and events providing inclusive, positive experiences for all ages.
The organizers of Pullman Pride—a coalition of volunteers, business owners, queer residents, allies and family members—joined forces to create an event to showcase Pullman as a welcoming environment that acknowledges, loves and supports its LGBTQIA+ community. Despite being a queer-friendly college town, Pullman hadn’t previously had a Pride celebration or a group focused on promoting one. So, the organizers of Pullman Pride chose to step up and make it happen themselves, with the event arising from a group chat between working moms.
“Some folks feel like there has to be an established nonprofit or some sort of human rights organization really managing a movement to be able to pull off a successful event, like they need things like corporate sponsorship,” said a Pullman Pride spokesperson. “But that’s not how our event was, it was really grassroots. Everyone that participated did so out of their own pocket and their own time. It was just a group of people that were invested in its success not for their own financial gain, but because they just wanted Pullman Pride to be awesome.”
Participants decorated booths and businesses, giving away free Pride-themed items rather than attempting to boost their own financial gain through the event with sales. Queer artists sold their work, but the event as a whole was celebratory, not commercial.
The grassroots origins of Pullman Pride grew quickly—before seeking nonprofit status or an official structure as a Washington business entity. While Pullman Pride may more formally organize in the future, the group’s leadership prioritized the event itself over structural matters.
“Becoming an official organization is something that we are looking to do, but it wasn’t possible in the time that we wanted to have our pride event,” said the spokesperson. “It wasn’t worth the time and effort for that over putting our time towards the event itself and focusing on making it happen and letting people know it was happening.”
Pullman Pride worked with Northwest Registered Agent to create a website for the event, which served as the official hub for volunteer for resources and information. After creating a free account, the organizers used Northwest’s Business Identity services to secure a URL and get the website started almost instantly.
“It worked great for us. We weren’t all getting inundated with personal emails because we all had access to it, versus one person getting it and then not being able to share that information. We had all the answers for questions in one spot we could share. It was nice to be able to do that within a setup that is built for businesses and nonprofits, so it has the things that we want to have and the things that we need, it even has the tools for for filing and forming a nonprofit—so even if we’re not ready to do that yet, it’s locked and loaded.”