ABOUT US
ABOUT PRIDE FUND
Pride Fund to End Gun Violence is the nation's only LGBTQ political action committee solely dedicated to gun violence prevention — endorsing champions of gun safety and equality for all at the federal and state level. Born ten days after the Pulse tragedy, Pride Fund honors the victims of gun violence through action: changing the balance of power in Washington and the states by electing leaders who will act on common-sense gun reform, and defeating those who stand in the way. We go above and beyond just writing checks — we pick Spotlight races where we can make the difference, and we fight them like a campaign.
OUR MISSION
Pride Fund to End Gun Violence works to change the balance of power in Washington and the states — electing leaders who will act on common-sense gun reform, and defeating those who stand in the way. Born from the Pulse tragedy, we honor the victims through action: mobilizing the LGBTQ community and our allies for the safety of everyone.
Not a think tank, not a mega-brand with a merch store — and never a PAC that endorses, writes a check, and moves on. Pride Fund is a grassroots political action committee advocating for gun safety and equality for all: a small, bold, campaign-grade force that turns remembrance into electoral results.
Our work is one thing: gun violence prevention. Our standard for the candidates we endorse is two things: they must champion both gun safety and equality for all. We don't bend either one.
TEN DAYS
On June 12, 2016, during Pride Month, 49 people were murdered and 53 wounded at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It was Latin Night. It was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, and it remains the deadliest attack on LGBTQ people this country has ever seen.
Watching that day — like so many others — was the man who would become our Founder & Executive Director: a gay Iraq War veteran who knew exactly what weapons of war do, and a political professional who knew exactly why nothing ever changed. On the news, a mother who did not yet know whether her son was alive pleaded on camera for someone, anyone, to do something about assault weapons.
While the country posted and protested, he made a different call: elections matter, and the funding behind campaigns matters. Ten days after the attack, Pride Fund to End Gun Violence was registered with the FEC as a political action committee. Rooted in Orlando, run from Washington, and built with allies from every community, Pride Fund has honored the victims the same way ever since: with action.
• June 12, 2016 — Pulse.
• June 22, 2016 — Pride Fund registered with the Federal Election Commission. Ten days.
• July 6, 2016 — Pride Fund announced to the public.
• August 17, 2016 — Launched in Orlando, with hundreds in the room.
FROM THE FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
I served fourteen years in the Army Reserve. I carried an M16 in Iraq. The rifle sold at retail here fires the same round from the same magazines on the same platform — and inflicts the same kind of serious or deadly wound. It was built for a battlefield, and that's where it belongs. I also spent two decades in politics — congressional offices, national campaigns — and I knew exactly why nothing changed after every shooting. It wasn't that the arguments were lost. It was that the people who kept losing them kept getting re-elected. Advocacy alone was never going to fix that. Changing who holds the seat would.
So ten days after Pulse, we filed the paperwork. We've never been the kind of PAC that endorses, writes a check, and puts out a press release. We get in the race. We make the ads the big organizations won't. We put volunteers on the phones into the districts that decide it. And we stay until the seat flips.
The thing I am proudest of isn't a race. It's the survivors and the family members who came to us carrying the worst day of their lives and left with a trained, powerful public voice — and who have told me, years later, that the work was part of how they healed.
This is going to be our most active campaign season in years. You remember the work. We need you back in our corner.
We still rise. We still organize. We still fight.
HONOR THROUGH ACTION
Honor Through Action — grief made useful. Pride Fund exists because remembrance without political power is sentiment; we honor the memory of those we lost, the survivors, and every life touched by the trauma of the Pulse shooting and gun violence everywhere — by building the power to protect the living: training survivors into advocates, mobilizing a community and its allies, and changing who writes America's gun laws.
Pride Fund will always remember why we exist — honoring the memory of those we lost, the survivors, and every life touched by the trauma of the Pulse shooting and gun violence everywhere. We will never forget the fervor and dedication that built this organization from nothing into a national force that made a real difference.
THE FORCE MULTIPLIER
Campaigns have a name for how Pride Fund works: force multiplier. It's their word, not ours. Every cycle we endorse champions of gun safety and equality for all — federal and state — and we choose a small number of Spotlight races where our work can decide the outcome. In those races we go far beyond the check:
• Ads. When a candidate takes NRA money the day after a tragedy, we make sure every voter in the district knows. It's the formula that flipped Florida's 7th and Virginia's 2nd, and it still wins.
• Field. National remote phone banks aimed at one district at a time. You don't have to live there to help flip it.
• Partnership. We work hand in hand with our Spotlight candidates — messaging grounded in real polling, events, fundraisers, and candidates who march with us in Pride parades.
• Earned media. We say the things the cautious organizations won't, and the press covers it. Two Spotlight races a cycle. The wider slate of endorsements behind them. And a standard we never bend.
TEN YEARS OF ACTION - AN EXAMPLE OF OUR WORK - CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO PAGE
Florida's 7th, 2016. A brand-new PAC, a safe Republican seat, a 24-year incumbent who cashed an NRA check within 48 hours of Pulse. We made sure every voter knew. Stephanie Murphy went from 18 points down to a 2.8-point win — and has said, repeatedly, that she could not have flipped the district without Pride Fund.
Virginia's 2nd, 2018. Two cycles alongside Elaine Luria: ads, field, volunteers calling in from across the country, roughly 22,000 targeted voters reached in the final week of her first race. A red seat, flipped.
The survivors who became advocates. The work we are proudest of never appeared in a press release. Over ten years, Pride Fund mentored, trained, and supported Pulse survivors and family members of the murdered — in media, public speaking, and the workings of politics and Congress — into some of the most powerful voices in the gun safety movement. One wrote a book and built a national profile. Others speak across the country. Several have told us the work gave them a purpose they did not have before, and was part of their healing.
And the rest of the decade. Dozens of endorsements across the states. Our 2018 landmark poll with Whitman Insight Strategies, which found gun reform the number-one issue for LGBTQ voters that year. Friend-of-the-court briefs in 2017 and 2020. Our published report on the impact of gun violence on the LGBTQ community. The Billy Manes Memorial Fellowship. A board that put survivors, and victims' families inside the organization from the start.
SIX THINGS WE DON’T BEND ON
• Honor through action. Remembrance always carries an action.
• We claim only the wins we earned. Every success we name comes with the receipts.
• We never just write a check. A Spotlight race means campaign-grade work, or it isn't a Spotlight race.
• We don't give up easily. Dig deep, try another avenue, then another.
• The letter of the law, to a T. FEC rules and guidelines, always.
• Bold, never corporate. If it could have come from a cautious mega organization’s press office, we rewrite it.
THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY AND OUR ALLIES
Pride Fund was born from an attack on our community. It has never been only our community's fight. A huge share of the people who fund this work, make the calls, and show up are straight —they found us because we don't hold back, and they stayed because the work is real. Whoever you are: if you don't just want to feel right about gun reform, if you want to do something that visibly works, you're one of us.
HOW YOUR DOLLAR WORKS
Pride Fund to End Gun Violence is a federal Carey hybrid PAC with both a PAC and a SuperPAC arm. Contributions to the PAC go directly to the candidates we endorse, within federal limits. The SuperPAC arm funds the ads and organizing we run in the races we choose.
WE REMEMBER
Honoring the memory of those we lost, the survivors, and every life touched by the trauma of thePulse shooting and gun violence everywhere.