8 Creative Company Parties Ideas to Celebrate Pride Month
June is pride month, and celebrating isn’t just for the weekends! Let’s look at some creative company party ideas to celebrate, too.
LGBTQIA+ History and Culture Trivia Contest
Why not combine fun and awareness? This will take a bit of research and make a fun team project for both the organizers and the players. Start with a list of famous historical facts in LGBTQIA+ history and culture, like famous contributions by LGBTQIA+ scientists, doctors, artists, and politicians. Get a stack of 3 x 5 cards or create a PowerPoint presentation with multiple choice answers. You can help the team to “study” in advance by putting flyers throughout the office with trivia facts about famous LGBTQIA+ individuals and their specific contributions to their field or to their community or to the world. This will educate while building momentum before the day of the contest.
Split the participants into teams to see which team knows more about LGBTQIA+ history and culture. There are likely to be some eye-opening moments for some participants as well as plenty of fun. If your budget allows, you can even have pride-themed prizes like rainbow men’s T-shirts and women’s T-shirts. The more you can ham up a contest like this, the better. Bring a happy-sounding bell to ring when participants get an answer right and a buzzer to buzz when they get an answer wrong. Having teams compete against each other will also keep individuals from feeling embarrassed if they get an answer wrong. You want to keep this fun for everyone.
DIY Rainbow Refreshments
Food always brings people together. Why not have different types of DIY rainbow refreshments that can be decorated in the break room? The team will have fun adding frosting and sprinkles to cookies, cupcakes, or brownies. Encourage people to take selfies with the creation and then print them off and post them on a bulletin board so all can see.
Decorate Your Space with Pride Contest
Bring the pride celebration to your cube or work area! Announce a decorate your space contest at the beginning of the month and award prizes with specific titles like the most fun, the prettiest, the most original, and the MVP (most visible pride).
Pride Dress Up Day with Prizes
Why not have a dress-up day with prizes for the best pride outfits? You’ll probably need to have Human Resources clarify what is and is not appropriate attire, but this one can get fun. This could include fun outfits, makeup, and even wigs if everyone is able to do their work while dressed up.
LGBTQIA+ Author
Find a local LGBTQIA+ author and invite them to give a talk and share a reading from their book. Most authors love the opportunity to share awareness of causes that are meaningful to them with the community at large (and perhaps sell some of their books to boot). You could also create a display of famous LGBTQIA+ authors throughout history. This could be both educational and perhaps surprising for some employees.
LGBTQIA+ Art Exhibit
Find local LGBTQIA+ artists (either established or employees from your company who would like to exhibit their hobby art) and set up an art exhibit in a break room or company café so that everyone can enjoy the pieces throughout the month. If you need some assistance with this, consider contacting a local arts council or university. They might also be able to direct you to individual LGBTQIA+ artists who are willing to come and speak to your company about how their identity influences their artwork.
LGBTQIA+ Musicians
Find local LGBTQIA+ musicians to perform at your company party. These could be well-established musicians or local employees who are individual instrumentalists or perhaps members of a garage band. One of the fun things about pride month can be learning more about everyone’s talents and hobbies.
Carnival Themed Party
This will involve a bigger budget and more planning but can pull all these ideas together into a great celebration. Have booths with different games, and rainbow-colored refreshments available, and encourage everyone to wear their “rainbow wear” or other celebratory pride clothing. A great addition to a carnival-themed company party is a dunk tank. Have the members of your leadership team take turns sitting above the dunk tank in shifts. This will create hilarity and good-natured fun as staff members compete to see who can dunk their boss. If you sell tickets for this event, you can donate the money to a non-profit organization that supports LGBTQIA+ causes. Don’t forget the beach towels for this event as well as swimsuits or other clothes that the “dunkees” don’t mind getting wet (plus a dry outfit).
Have fun celebrating pride month!