Current and Recent Funders

Much of our core work is funded by professional fees (e.g. from training and consultancy), or by annual service-level agreements. A large part of this income is unpredictable, which explains why some of our core work is very badly under-staffed and the Trust's capacity is often stretched beyond our limits.

We are therefore particularly grateful to our key local partners who fund specific parts of the Trust's work through a variety of service-level agreements and contracts, including Devon County Council and Cornwall County Council.

Help and Advocacy Services, 2009

Our Help and Advocacy services received critical support during 2009 from:

Devon County Council
the Safer Devon Partnership
Devon and Cornwall Constabulary
Torbay Council
Safer Communities Torbay
Torbay Primary Care Trust.

We are more grateful to these stakeholders than we can easily express. Their joint investment was all that enabled us to keep our Help and Advocacy services going during a critical funding-gap between March and November 2009. It is great to be able to say that their investment has proved worthwhile, and that this service is ready for significant long-term expansion with new funding in 2010.

Protecting our Independence

Our service-level agreements and other grant contracts protect the Trust's confidentiality. We never share information about our service-users, callers or supporters with any other agency at all. We would never accept any funding or contract that could compromise anyone's confidentiality or put at risk the community confidence we work so hard to deserve.

Our funders also protect (in fact they welcome) our ability to challenge as a critical friend, advocating directly and robustly where needed on behalf of people who have experienced discrimination or poor service. We can challenge and advocate without prejudice to our funding relationship. This is in harmony with central government policies (see the Government's Compact with the Voluntary and Community Sector).

We pay tribute to the determination shown by all our funders to protect, and show that they value, our rules about confidentiality, our advocacy responsibilities, and their two-way working relationship with us.

Some individual service-areas and projects are externally funded for the short or medium-term. We are enormously grateful to the following funders, who have enabled so much good work. (These are listed in chronological order, more recent first):

Reaching Communities (a programme of the Big Lottery Fund) has awarded us a grant which will sustain, and help us to expand, our community Help and Advocacy service in Cornwall, Plymouth, Devon and Torbay from June 2010 to May 2013.

The Government Hardship Fund (through the Community Development Foundation) which is funding our Helpline and Advocacy work in Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay from November 2009 to May 2010.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, which awarded us a grant for a very exciting project involving working with the media, called Being Out There (January - March 2009)

BASIS (a programme of the Big Lottery Fund), which awarded us funding to support the Lynx South West Project from 2007-2010. We are very glad to say this means that our core services for providing community development and support for independent groups are now secure for three years from November 2007.

The Heritage Lottery Fund, which awarded us a grant to support our LGBT History Month and Heritage Project across the peninsula from June 2007 to December 2008.

The Home Office Victims' Fund, which funded a special project (October 2007 - March 2008) to get better help for people affected by phobic crime across the peninsula. See the project's web-page.

The Safer Devon Partnership (part of the Devon Strategic Partnership), which funded us in 2007 to do research into LGBT people's awareness around the community safety issues that may affect them in Devon, and funded us in 2009 to conduct a campaign to encourage the reporting of phobic crimes and incidents (the Enough Is Enough campaign --- many thanks to all who filled in those jazzy postcards!)

The Local Network Fund for young people, which funded us during 2007 to consult young LGBT people in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay about their needs, focusing on personal safety issues (including bullying). Local Network Fund grants in Devon are administered through the Devon Community Foundation.

Torbay Pride Support, which has given us two generous donations from the proceeds of their 2006 and 2007 fundraising events (the "Over the Rainbow Ball").These donations are to be used to support and extend parts of our Advocacy services for individuals in need (parts of the service which were not funded by external funders).

The Community Fund (a former programme within the Big Lottery Fund), which supported our Help and Advocacy service in Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay between 2006 and 2009.

CapacityBuilders (central government through CapacityBuilders), which continued funding the Lynx South West Project during 2006 and early 2007, and then again for part of 2008.

Change Up (central government through Government Office for the South West), which funded our infrastructure and community development project Lynx South West during 2004-2006.