For KishaLynn Elliott, everything this month has been Pride, Pride, Pride.
It’s the executive director’s first year guiding San Diego Pride through its flagship event week — and she promises that after years of leadership tumult at the organization, this event will not be her last.
“I knew it was going to be hard, and I said I was willing to do it anyway, because I care,” Elliott said.
Some parts of Pride week will be new for her — Elliott is attending the Spirit of Stonewall Rally for the first time — while others are familiar. She volunteered for over a decade at the festival and has been involved in other affiliate groups.
Aspects of the job itself are new, too. She’s more in the public eye than ever before, particularly as the first Black lesbian to take up the organization’s helm. The job lands her at a philanthropic organization for the first time, fulfilling a longtime dream.
However, all of her experience and skills from decades spent working at education nonprofits, most recently as chief operating officer at the Monarch School for unhoused children in San Diego, are transferable.
San Diego Pride executive director KishaLynn Elliott. (Photo courtesy San Diego Pride)“This doesn’t feel like a career pivot, as much of it does feel like an extension of my career,” Elliott said.
The biggest change coming to Pride week this year is the return of the Dyke March, a grassroots sidewalk march through Hillcrest, on July 11.Other changes for this year’s Pride are more logistical. The Spirit of Stonewall Rally has a temporary location on the west side of Hillcrest by the Brass Rail due to the construction of the Pride Promenade. Inside the festival, the Queer Locals Marketplace, full of San Diego area LGBTQ+ vendors, is expanding after its popularity last year.
Elliott has been on the job for six months, ushering in these changes. On her very first day on the job, the staff presented her with this year’s theme: Pride Shines On.
“I thought it was perfect, because we really need some light,” Elliott said.
The theme harkens to struggles the movement has faced and overcome.
“It takes us back to our roots of remembering that we were always up for a fight,” Elliott explained. “We didn’t ask for permission to be here. We were never safe. We were never welcome. And we decided to mobilize and to activate and create safety, belonging, celebration and visibility for ourselves as a movement.”
That historical reminder is a message of hope and perseverance as the LGBTQ+ community faces increasing external attacks.
The organization is up against a harsh funding environment. Some corporate sponsors have pulled back as the cost to do business rises, and also as the Trump administration pressures the private sector to drop diversity efforts.
In its inaugural year, the Fabric of Pride fashion show raised money for San Diego Pride. (Photo courtesy San Diego Pride)Additionally, government funding has dropped.
In response, Elliott wants the organization to return to its original funding source: individual donors from the community. She noted that everyone who purchases a festival ticket is already a donor. In addition, she put on a fashion show, the Fabric of Pride fundraiser in March, to launch an individual giving campaign.
“If you want to help San Diego Pride sustain itself through the uncertain times of what’s happening with corporate sponsorships and with government funding, the only way that we are going to be able to do that is for everyone to understand and identify as the donors that they are,” Elliot said.
Former Community Service Stonewall Award winner Jordan Daniels poses on the runway in an outfit by Betty Bangs at the March Fabric of Pride fundraiser. (Photo courtesy San Diego Pride)Those giving campaigns are meant to better position the philanthropic organization, which supports LGBTQ+ organizations around the world with annual grants. But those grants, which dropped to $70,000 total in 2025, come from any extra monies not dedicated to putting on San Diego’s largest annual civic event.
And even as funding evaporates, the community is calling for more year-round programming and advocacy.
Meanwhile, putting on the festival is more expensive than ever. City permits cost more, too, and security costs are up while threats against LGBTQ+ people rise.
But it’s some of those threats, to safety, to acceptance and to rights, that are the toughest to grapple with as the head of an LGBTQ-serving nonprofit committed to eradicating prejudice and bias.
“Our mission is not to have a parade and a festival. Our mission is not even (to) offer year-round programming. Our mission is to make sure that we’re fostering equality and respect for LGBTQIA people around the world. That is the actual work,” Elliott said. “And it has gotten just as much more challenging to be effective in that as it is to produce the festival.”
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