Colorado Springs Pride Center Closes, New Centers May Rise

By Kyle Harris

WHEN THE COLORADO SPRINGS LGBT COMMUNITY got wind that the city’s Pride Center was shutting its doors, many worried that the community would lose a critical political voice. But the center’s financial struggles and waning relevance made it impossible for the nonprofit to fulfill its mission, says Eric Marcum, the center’s last board president.

“The Pride Center wasn’t seen as effective. To a certain extent, [critics] were right,” Marcum says. Over the years, the organization established political ties to the city’s conservative leadership, opened a cyber café, and hosted a robust library. However, funding cuts from the Gill Foundation and others forced the center to seek funds from new sources, individual donors, and corporate sponsors.

“As we were losing our grants, I think the board or treasurer or executive director at the time thought those grants were coming back — then we started to get in a hole with the IRS,” says Marcum. “The last two years — since I’ve been on the board — [we’ve] been very responsible and have taken our debt down. Our debt was somewhere around $25,000 and it was twice that a little over a year ago.”

To cut the debt, resources had to be slashed. The library, the cyber café, and the political advocacy work waned; endless fundraising began.

“That rubbed some people the wrong way, and I don’t blame them,” Marcum says. Feeling heat from past donors, the organization reassessed its mission and recommitted itself to being a voice for the LGBT community in the city. Last summer’s Pride Fest was a financial boon for the organization, giving the team enough courage to push on.
But it wasn’t enough to survive.
“Once we got ourselves back on track about what our mission should be as the voice of the LGBTQ community in this area, it was too late,” Marcum says.

Funding had dried up. There were no more individual donors to tap. The com- munity felt burned. Without money, the center had to make more cuts. “We were behind on paying the executive director. I stopped and said, ‘We can’t do this any more. If we can’t pay the executive director, if we can’t pay our payroll taxes, if we’re scrambling to pay rent, some things have got to stop.’

“We started there, and then took a look and said, ‘No, that’s not enough. We basically have to close these doors.’ The board decided on Jan. 8, at a regular board meeting, to dissolve the organization in the hopes that a new one would take over — perhaps even more than one. It came down to a decision for the community. It was irresponsible to continue, and we knew we’d have people who would take over and make a fresh start,” Marcum says. “There were several directors with tears in their eyes. They made a hard decision, but they made the right one. They made the responsible decision.”

The legacy of the Pride Center lives on through some of the recent legislative victories: anti-discrimination laws, the legalization of civil unions, and now marriage, Marcum says.

“We gained a lot of ground in the last 37 years. To view it as a failure is not looking at the history of the center. We just came to the point where a new one would be better.”

One of Marcum’s favorite stories about the Pride Center happened last year, when a 65-year-old man showed up, over several days. Outside, he paced in front of the center. “We were getting a little nervous that he was going to bomb the place. That’s not a laughing matter. You see what happened to the NAACP down here.

“He asked to speak to Charlie, our executive director. Charlie didn’t know what to make of this guy, because he was nervous and shaking like he could do some serious damage. Charlie sat him down and said, ‘What can we help you with?’ The guy said, ‘I’m dying. I have to tell someone that I’m gay.’

“Charlie put him at ease and put him in touch with several support groups. The man died recently, but he died his true self. We helped a lot of people come out of the closet or be more confident or be more in touch with their rights. We were the voice of our communities,” Marcum says.

As for the future, two groups have emerged. One plans to take over the city’s Pride Fest, the annual parade; the other hopes to fill some of the social and political functions the center had. With new centers emerging, Marcum feels confident about the board’s decision.

“The majority opinion down here is, ‘It’s sad, but let’s celebrate the 37 years we had and get started on a new organization.”