The March is Missing Money

Alliterative but sad.

The ride was never easy, and post-March news isn't any better than the infighting that lead up to the event.

Organizers of the Millennium March on Washington announced (well, actually acknowledged) that close to three quarters of a million dollars in proceeds from the March are missing.

The revenue would have gone to pay various vendors and other suppliers to the March, many of whom may now go without payment with no viable organization or indivudual from whom to recover what is due.

The money was raised by the sale of wristbands at $5 each which allowed entry to the street fair portion of the March including imbibing with various vendors.

A private company Millennium Productions LLC, created for this purpose, was to collect the money, then turn it over to the March organizers, who would then pay the vendors and other March related debts.

It had been estimated that the money raised from this portion of events would generate about 65% of the total festival revenues.

The March costs totalled close to 1.8 million dollars, and these funds were very much required in order to avoid major financial losses.

March organizers were informed almost immediately that funds were missing, but the story didn't become fully public until Michelangelo Signorile's editorial piece was published by gay.com.

The FBI is investigating, but in the interim, festival vendors will go unpaid although HRC has offered to use some of its income from the April 29th Equality Rocks concert to help MMOW pay some of its outstanding bills.

----- More Information -----

Contribute to G/L Issues

to help with our expenses