Pride Foundation’s Seattle roots helped build a regional LGBTQ giving network

The Pride Foundation’s history is closely tied to Seattle’s LGBTQ community and its tradition of organized philanthropy. Founded in 1985, the Pacific Northwest foundation has since distributed more than $8 million in grants and provided more than $1.65 million through the 50-plus scholarships it manages.

One of its clearest Seattle connections began in 1993, when the foundation started awarding scholarships. It partnered with the Greater Seattle Business Association, commonly known as GSBA, on a shared application process. That collaboration created a joint route for applicants seeking LGBTQ-focused educational support and linked two institutions with longstanding roles in the region’s queer civic and business life.

The foundation’s early development was also shaped by Allan Tonning, a small-business owner who served as its first president. Tonning contributed $1.2 million to help establish the organization, but died one year after assisting with its launch. His role reflects the importance of individual donors in building institutions intended to serve LGBTQ communities over the long term.

Pride Foundation’s work has extended beyond scholarships and direct grantmaking. In 1995, it participated in a shareholder proxy campaign focused on McDonald’s Corporation. The effort persuaded the company to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy. Five years later, in March 2000, another initiative helped convince General Electric to include sexual orientation in both its nondiscrimination policy and diversity-training program.

The foundation also became the recipient of a major planned gift connected to Ric Weiland, a former Microsoft employee who died in 2006. On February 24, 2008, Pride Foundation announced that Weiland had left $65 million to support gay-rights and HIV/AIDS organizations. The bequest was described as the largest single gift of its kind for the LGBT community at that time. Through Weiland’s estate, a fund was established at Pride Foundation.

Taken together, these milestones show how Seattle-linked institutions and donors helped shape a regional LGBTQ funding infrastructure. The foundation’s work has combined student aid, charitable grants, corporate accountability campaigns and large-scale estate giving. For Seattle, its story is not only about money raised or distributed; it is also about the networks connecting local business leaders, philanthropists and advocates to LGBTQ organizations across the Pacific Northwest.

Source and reuse information This backgrounder adapts factual material from “Pride Foundation” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_Foundation The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.

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