Pride Circle: Navigating the Anti-DEI Wave for LGBT+ Inclusion

Nidhi S. Bisht

Product #:W46945

Supplier:MDI/Ivey

Discipline:General Management, Organizational Behaviour/Leadership

Setting:India, 2005

Details:Case (PDF) • 10 pages • 2026-03-10

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By early 2025, Pride Circle (a unit of Inclusion First Consultancy Private Limited), a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) organization focusing on LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion, faced a critical point. Following the momentum from the 2018 Supreme Court of India ruling decriminalizing homosexuality, Pride Circle had become a trusted corporate partner and had gained visibility through its flagship event, Reimagining Inclusion for Social Equity (RISE), which included a conference, job fair, and marketplace, that had successfully been held six times. As global sentiments toward DEI shifted, multinational firms in India grew cautious, cutting budgets and commitments. When RISE 2025 saw declining participation, Pride Circle co-founders were confronted with how to sustain Pride Circle’s mission and legitimacy amid rising uncertainty.

Learning Objectives

The case offers a context to explore how social mission–oriented organizations can sustain legitimacy, manage corporate partnerships, and adapt strategies in adversarial settings. It is well-suited for both undergraduate and graduate program courses in strategic management, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, business ethics, and human resource management, as well as executive programs on leadership and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

By the end of this case discussion, students will be able to do the following:

Understand how advocacy organizations maintain legitimacy with multiple stakeholders while navigating shifting institutional and corporate environments.
Critically evaluate the opportunities and risks of relying on corporate sponsorship to advance social inclusion.
Examine how global discourses (e.g., DEI pushbacks) shape local strategies and the risk of mission drift.
Explore developing adaptive strategies in uncertain contexts.
Consider the broader implications of global DEI backlash for inclusion strategies in India and similar contexts and identify resilient models for social change.