Overview Black Tie Dinner is Dallas's black-tie fundraising gala for LGBTQ+ causes, a dinner that began with 140 guests at the Fairmont Hotel in 1982 and had distributed more than $32 million by its 44th year in 2025. Each year's proceeds go to up to 20 North Texas LGBTQ+ organizations chosen for that cycle and to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, its standing national beneficiary. The dinner fills the ballroom of the Sheraton Dallas in the fall with a seated dinner, live and silent auctions, awards and entertainment, under the line "A Ballroom for Everyone." Black Tie Dinner, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3), and it calls the evening the nation's largest LGBTQ+ fundraising dinner of its kind. On site In 2025 the theme was "Still We Rise": guests came in over a gold carpet, Denise Lee sang "Rise Up," Hayley Orrantia and Extended Play played the dinner, and former NFL player Carl Nassib introduced the honorees. The live auction that night included a $50,000 luxury car credit. The program runs a video on each year's beneficiaries and a biographical film on the humanitarian award honoree, and donations come in by text during the program. The B4Black reception runs before the dinner for sponsors, and the year's calendar also carries a spring kickoff that names the beneficiaries and UnTux: Drag for a Cause, an August night at the Rose Room where board members perform in drag. Audience The ballroom puts the year's beneficiaries - in 2025 they included Resource Center, Turtle Creek Chorale, Cathedral of Hope and Equality Texas Foundation - at tables beside the companies and individuals who buy them, with elected officials and national LGBTQ+ figures on the program. U.S. Representatives Julie Johnson and Jasmine Crockett spoke in 2025, as did Human Rights Campaign Foundation president Kelley Robinson. Talent and Influencers Jim Obergefell received the Equality Award in 2025, Jaymes Black of The Trevor Project the Kuchling Humanitarian Award and Libby Gonzales the Mike Anglin Trailblazer Award. Cynthia Nixon and Colman Domingo took the Media Award in 2023 and 2022, and Billy Porter, Gus Kenworthy and Eric Cervini have received the Equality Award. Matt Bomer and Beto O'Rourke spoke in 2018 and Lance Bass in 2019, Maya Angelou in 1997, and the program has also carried Debra Messing, Niecy Nash, Connie Britton, Todrick Hall and Betty Who. Track record The dinner grew out of a Dallas Dinner Committee formed in March 1982 by John Thomas, Ray Kuchling, Mike Anglin and Dick Weaver; the first dinner raised $6,000, and the first 25 years raised more than $10 million. The 2023 distribution, $1.73 million, was a record. In 2025 Deirdre Coleman became the first Black woman to co-chair the dinner, alongside Liliana Villarreal. Brand presence Sponsor levels are named for gems, from Pearl to Platinum, and are sold mainly as tables of ten, with logos on screen in the ballroom and online, Dinner Journal ads, a hotel suite on the night, B4Black tickets and, at the top, recognition from the podium. Underwriting sits alongside: a partner can take the live luxury auction, the silent auction and its mobile bidding platform, the beneficiary video, a live performance, text-to-give, the Dinner Journal, the gifts left in top sponsors' hotel rooms or UnTux, down to valet and live captioning.