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 partners who fund specific parts of the Trust's work through a variety of service-level agreements. They include (in chronological order) Devon County Council, Cornwall County Council, and Devon and Cornwall Police.

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):

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.

CapacityBuilders (central government through CapacityBuilders), which continued funding the Lynx South West Project during 2006 and early 2007.

The Big Lottery Fund, which is funding our Helpline and Advocacy work in Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay from 2006-2009.

In 2005-2006, grants from the Devon Strategic Partnership and Devon and Cornwall Police covered the research costs of the big community survey whose results we later published in the report A Firmer Foundation (September 2006). These grants enabled us to invest in the SPSS survey analysis software for our CEDAR Project.

BASIS (also part of the Big Lottery Fund), which awarded us a Stage Two Development Grant to prepare a bid for funding to support the Lynx South West Project from 2007-2010. We are very glad to say this bid was successful, which means that our core services that provide community development and support for independent groups are now secure for three years from November 2007.

The Local Network Fund for young people, which has funded us during 2007 to consult young LGB/T 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 a generous donation from the proceeds of their 2006 fundraising "Over the Rainbow Ball".This donation is to be used to support and extend parts of our Advocacy services for individuals in need (parts which are not funded by the Big Lottery Fund).

The Safer Devon Partnership (part of the Devon Strategic Partnership), which has funded us to do research into LGB/T people's awareness around the community safety issues that may affect them in Devon.

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

The Home Office Victims' Fund, which has 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.