Washington Blade - February 22, 2008
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Whitman-Walker announced in October that it had decided to withdraw from its role as producer and primary financial underwriter of Capital Pride and would seek an orderly transfer of the Capital Pride festivities to another local organization.

"We interviewed four applicants," said Clinic spokesperson Chip Lewis. "We are still in the process of deliberation."

Lewis said the interviews took place Feb. 12 and 13 following the Clinic's release on Jan. 4 of an official request for proposals for taking over Capital Pride. He said the Clinic's board of directors is expected to make a decision on the changeover by March 14.

Whitman-Walker's chief executive officer, Don Blanchon, said in October that the decision to divest the Clinic from Capital Pride is part of an effort to focus more on the Clinic's "core mission" of providing health care services to the gay community and people with HIV and AIDS.

Shortly after the Clinic announced that decision, three groups emerged as candidates for becoming the new chief producer of Capital Pride and began informal discussions with Clinic officials over their plans to take on the project.

One of the three was Southwest Renaissance Development Corporation, a nonprofit group created by Washington's Westminster Presbyterian Church. John DiNapoli, an official with the Southwest Renaissance group, said that with the gay-supportive church's encouragement, Southwest Renaissance has long been involved in Capital Pride as a sponsor of Pride week events.

The Southwest Renaissance proposal attracted attention from gay activists because, if accepted, its takeover would mark the first known time that a church-run entity would serve as producer of a Gay Pride event in a major U.S. city.

The D.C. GLBT Community Center and a newly formed group called Capital Pride Alliance also announced in the fall that they would submit proposals for becoming the producer of Capital Pride.

DiNapoli and officials with the Center and Capital Pride Alliance announced they had submitted their proposals to the Clinic in late January.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that a company called Jansi LLC, which publishes Metro Weekly, a D.C. gay magazine, had also submitted a proposal to become the Capital Pride producer.

This week, Metro Weekly co-publisher Sean Bugg confirmed that the company had submitted a proposal for the Capital Pride project and that the proposal calls for establishing a nonprofit entity to operate the Capital Pride events. Bugg noted that Jansi and Metro Weekly have published the Pride Guide, a program book listing Capital Pride events and activities, for the past nine years.

"We've had a relationship with Capital Pride for quite some time, and we felt that our mission fits in," Bugg said.

Jansi, along with the Center and Southwest Renaissance, released to the Blade copies of most of the content of their proposals. The Center posted a copy of its proposal on its web site.

Michael Lutz, one of the organizers of Capital Pride Alliance, declined to release his group's proposal. He said Whitman-Walker called for a closed bidding process that discourages disclosure of details of the bids until the Clinic reaches a decision on which, if any, of the groups to select for taking on Capital Pride.

"We chose to respect that process," he said.

However, Lutz added that, similar to the Center and Southwest Renaissance, Capital Pride Alliance posted some information about this proposal on its own, newly launched web site.

Based on the information released from each of the four groups that submitted bids, all have proposed a phase-in period of between one to three years, with Whitman-Walker continuing to finance Capital Pride activities for this year's event.

Whitman-Walker has said it costs about $120,000 to operate Capital Pride each year. Clinic officials have said most of the costs are recovered by revenue generated from corporate sponsors, fundraising events and fees charged for booths used by dozens of vendors, community groups and companies at the festival. Additional revenue comes from fees charged for contingents participating in the parade.

Michael Sessa, Center president, has stated in his proposal that the Center is well suited for taking on Capital Pride as one of its projects because it "interfaces with the GLBT community as a normal course of everyday business." He said the Center "is connected to most if not all organizations and continues to build its awareness and its outreach."

Lutz of Capital Pride Alliance said his group is comprised of many of the volunteer organizers of Capital Pride who have helped stage the event under various incarnations for more than 20 years. He and the group's community outreach spokesperson, Bernie Delia, said that unlike the other groups competing for Capital Pride, the Alliance group would operate Capital Pride as its sole function and purpose.

DiNapoli said Southwest Renaissance and Westminster Presbyterian Church have a long track record of founding and "incubating" community groups and projects, including Food & Friends, the highly regarded D.C. area facility that provides food for people with HIV and other debilitating illnesses.

He said Southwest already has an office, staff and budget and would be ready to produce Capital Pride this year with start-up funding provided by Whitman-Walker.

By 2009, he said, his group would be able to produce Capital Pride with revenue it generated from this year's events. However, he said its goal would be to work over the next three years to turn over Capital Pride to an independent entity, possibly comprised of people who have worked on Pride events as volunteers in the past.

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