LGBTQ+ Awareness Pins: 100% of Profits to Charity

A Home for Everyone Awareness Pin

We're Delwin and Jimmy, co-founders of Proud Zebra, a queer-owned Canadian small business designing pride pins and accessories from the Lower Mainland, BC. Our LGBTQ+ awareness pins are the part of the catalogue we're most particular about. We started Proud Zebra because we wanted to do more than sell pride merch; these donation pride pins are the most direct way we put that into practice.

This post explains how our advocacy pins program works, which charities each pin supports, and why we've structured it the way we have. It's part of our broader work documented in our complete guide to LGBTQ+ pride flags and our pride pin history piece.

What are the LGBTQ+ Awareness Pins?

The LGBTQ+ awareness pins are a collection of 6 enamel charity pride pins where 100% of the profits from each pin are donated to a specific LGBTQ+ charity. We designed each pin to spotlight a particular cause or community within the broader LGBTQ+ movement, and tied each one to a charity actively doing work in that space. These are different from regular advocacy pins or rainbow-pin fundraisers, every dollar of profit goes to the named org, not a percentage.

The "100% of profits" framing matters. Most charity-tied merchandise donates a small percentage (often 5-10%) and treats the donation as a marketing line item. Awareness Pins flip that: every dollar of profit on the pin goes to the charity, and we treat the program as a cost centre, not a revenue source.

This is also separate from how our regular pride pins work. Our flag pins, identity pins, and other merchandise generate a portion of profits that we pool and donate annually. The awareness pins go above and beyond that, with the full margin earmarked for the named charity.

Day of Silence Lapel Pin

Which charities do the Awareness Pins support?

Each of the 6 awareness pins supports a different LGBTQ+ charity, chosen because they do work we can stand behind:

Two Spirit Feather Dancers Awareness Pin

Four of the six are BC- or Canada-based, which we did intentionally. As a BC-based queer business, we wanted most of our giving to land directly in the communities we operate in. GLSEN and Sayoni round out the program with broader US and international LGBTQ+ work.

Which Awareness Pin supports which charity?

Each pin in the Awareness Pins collection is tied to a specific charity. Here's the full pin-to-charity mapping, including the two pins where we changed recipients in May 2023:

For the two pins where we changed recipients in May 2023 (Can't Change Us and A Home for Everyone), the new partnerships move funds closer to home: from the UK and provincial-health-foundation context into BC-based organizations doing the same work on the ground here. The earlier donations to BCCDC Foundation and akt are still part of our cumulative giving total.

Beyond the 6 Awareness Pins, a portion of every regular Proud Zebra order also routes to year-round LGBTQ+ work: BC pride societies (Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops, Chilliwack, Maple Ridge, Kootenay), Rainbow Refugee, QMUNITY, AIDS Vancouver, A Loving Spoonful, TransBefrienders, and Oogachaga. The full donations page has the running breakdown.

How much have we actually donated?

To date, Proud Zebra has donated $10,219.58 CAD to LGBTQ+ organizations. That figure includes the full Awareness Pins program plus the portion-of-profits we set aside annually from regular pride merchandise sales.

We update the running total publicly because charity transparency matters. It's easy for any brand to claim "a portion of proceeds" without ever specifying what that means. We'd rather have a real, growing number we can point to.

Delwin and Jimmy

"I am also very grateful to help support my fellow LGBTQ+ families of all races and identities. In times where we may feel powerless, it's best to help where we can. And eventually it will build."

Nautiholic, on our Inclusive Pride Flag Proud Cubes

That review captures something we hear often. People buying pride pins right now aren't just looking for a fashion accessory, they're trying to find concrete ways to support the community during a difficult political moment, and the awareness pins are one direct path for that.

Why donate 100% of profits instead of a percentage?

Most "give-back" merchandise programs donate a small percentage and treat the donation as marketing spend. That's fine; it's a legitimate model. But it has a few downsides for the customer:

• The percentage is often vague or unspecified ("a portion of proceeds")
• The donation is rolled into broader corporate giving without traceability
• The brand benefits more than the charity in many cases

We wanted the Awareness Pins to function differently. By dedicating 100% of profits per pin to a named charity, we make the math obvious: buy the pin, the charity gets the money. We cover production, packing, and shipping; the charity gets what's left over after costs.

This means awareness pins aren't a profit centre for us. They cover their own costs and contribute to charity, full stop. The rest of the catalogue funds the business.

For more on the broader donation pattern beyond the Awareness Pins program, see how charity transparency shows up across our work in the complete pride flags guide and across our broader pride pins history.

Support Queer Art Lapel Pin

How do you choose which charities to support?

The current 6 charities were chosen based on three criteria:

1. Direct community impact. Each org's work touches real people in tangible ways, students, homeless youth, queer Asian women, Indigenous youth, queer health research participants, queer film audiences.
2. Operational transparency. Each org publishes annual reports, financial statements, and program outcomes that we can verify.
3. Mission overlap with our values. Each org centres community-led work rather than top-down "saviour" framing.

We expect this list to evolve. Charities sometimes change leadership, scope, or priorities, and we want to keep our giving aligned with orgs doing community-trusted work. If you have a charity recommendation we should look at for future awareness pins, send it our way.

Can't Change Us Lapel Pin

How do I buy an Awareness Pin?

The Awareness Pins are listed under our Awareness Pins collection, separate from our broader pride pins collection. Each pin's product page (such as our inclusive pride pin) names the supporting charity directly. Each pin's product page names the supporting charity directly. You can also find related pride pins across the broader pride pins collection.

If you want to give without buying merchandise, you can donate directly to any of the 6 charities through their official websites linked above. We'll never argue with someone who wants to skip the pin and send the money straight through.

SG Rainbow Scorecard Lapel Pin

Frequently asked questions

Where the work goes

The Awareness Pins program is the most direct way we put our community values into the math of running a small business. It's not the only way (our regular pride flag pins also fund a portion of charity giving) but it's the one with the cleanest line from purchase to impact.

If you want to dig deeper into any of the 6 charities, the links in the table above go directly to each org's site. If you want to see the rest of our merchandise, our complete pride flags guide covers all 32 of the major identity flags and points to the products we've designed for each.

Running total of donations to date: $10,219.58 CAD. Every order helps that number grow.

Related identity guides

Each awareness pin sits alongside our identity-flag guides. If you want to learn more about a specific identity the program touches, start here:

• Aroace pride flag guide
• Bisexual and polysexual guide
• Genderfluid guide
• Lesbian pride flag guide
• Non-binary and genderqueer guide
• Two-Spirit pride flag guide
• Transgender identity guide