The New Haven Pride Center has lost its tax-exempt nonprofit status and has replaced its executive director after failing to file multiple years’ worth of tax forms.
The local LGBTQIA+ advocacy organization announced the change in leadership and nonprofit status on its Facebook page Monday night.
In a Tuesday afternoon phone interview with the Independent, Pride Center Board of Directors President Dolores D. Hopkins said that the IRS revoked the Pride Center’s 501(c)(3) status “based on the filing of taxes in a timely manner.” She also said that the IRS did not receive a series of required annual 990 forms from the center. (The IRS automatically removes an organization’s nonprofit status after three years of missed 990s.) The Pride Center’s most recent 990 form available on the IRS’ website is from 2017.
The revocation of the organization’s tax-exempt status means that donors cannot deduct from their taxes financial contributions to the Pride Center until the IRS reinstates its 501(c)(3) status. That process can take months.
The Pride Center is working with BryteBridge Nonprofit Solutions to reinstate its nonprofit status in a way that would retroactively apply to the non-exempt period. “I’m confident it will be reinstated,” Hopkins told the Independent.
In the meantime, the Pride Center is reassessing finances in the hopes of keeping its 12-person staff employed and as many programs as possible running. “Our staff comes from the community and it’s important for us to take care of them,” Hopkins said. As for services like case management, affinity groups, and the community closet and food bank, Hopkins said, “we’re gonna continue everything that we can.”
According to the Pride Center’s Facebook statement on Monday, the organization is undertaking an internal investigation into its financial management practices.
“In accordance with our bylaws, the Board of Directors is conducting a thorough investigation with the assistance of outside professional service and accounting firms to determine the exact nature of the situation and its causes, and to seek retroactive reinstatement of 501(c)(3) status,” the statement reads.
Patrick Dunn, who has served as the Pride Center’s executive director since 2017, is also no longer at the helm of the organization. During Dunn’s five-year tenure leading the Pride Center, he built the Ninth Square-based organization up into a food pantry, art gallery, social services provider, drag show promoter, and all-around advocate for the gay community in New Haven and across Connecticut.
According to that same Facebook post, the Pride Center’s Board of Directors has voted to appoint Juancarlos Soto, who previously served as the center’s deputy director, to serve as acting executive director.
Dunn did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment for this article.
The Pride Center's statement posted to Facebook on Monday.
The center is pausing its services for a week, but plans to resume programming soon.
According to the statement, “In tandem with the former Executive Director’s departure, NHPC and staff have suspended programming from October 30th to November 5th, resuming the following week. Our scheduled Chocolate and Cheesecake event on November 4th will continue as planned. We apologize for the inconvenience to community members for this short disruption to regularly scheduled programming.”
In the meantime, Hopkins said the Pride Center is looking for financial and in-kind donations, including through food drives that she anticipates will start up in the coming days in order to keep the Pride Center’s food bank stocked.
“If people don’t need a tax write-off, we certainly need donations, because we need to keep our staff employed, we need to continue case management, we need to keep our food bank going,” she said. “Our goal is to figure out how to operate for the next two or three months.”
Board Member: "Please Keep Coming In"
Supporters of the Pride Center have taken to social media in the wake of Monday’s announcement, wrestling with the still-unfolding news and encouraging the local LGBTQIA+ community to reach out to those in need of help.
Pride Center Board Member Hope Chávez posted the following message to Facebook in that vein:
There is no joy in seeing our families hurt or struggle. The New Haven Pride Center is a huge part of my chosen family, and what do we do for family? We show up.
As a board member, I want to have a plan, solutions, and answers to all the questions, but I don’t yet. We’re figuring this out one step at a time and centering the vulnerable folx most affected by our work in this process.
Speaking only for myself, I ask this of my New Haven community:
1) if you need the services of the Center, or if you know people who do, please keep coming in.
2) if you know Center staff members, reach out, send them love, ask what they need, and show up for them in the coming weeks.
3) if you have the capacity to volunteer, reach out to Dolores and Juancarlos. In all of my learnings about how to move through change, I always come back to community + interdependence. Isolation is not the answer.
4) as you are able, allow this to be a moment for practicing transformative justice. Less disposing and more boundaries. Fewer assumptions and more listening. In the words of Adrienne Maree Brown, “We are responsible for each other’s transformation.”
Seems like they used Patrick as the Scapegoat.
Anyone who knows more into this sitaution knows it has far less to do with the director and far more to do with other staff members.