Stonewall is in financial difficulty

[RoyalCorgi]

Interesting post from Rob Jessel:

https://x.com/robjessel16/status/2008194383301185966

If you can't read it, their return to Companies House shows that last year (ending 31 March 2025) they had a deficit of £906k.

A deficit is for a single year, rather than the overall amount of debt an organisation has (eg you could have a deficit for a single year but still not be in debt).

One startling element is the reduction in reserves. At the end of the previous financial year they had reserves of £998k. At the end of March 2025, that was down to £92k.

That's such a dramatic fall I wonder if I've understood it correctly, so if you have more financial expertise than I do, feel free to correct me.

You can see the Companies House return at: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02412299/filing-history

I've never smoked, but I feel like having a fag after reading this news.

MSM are onto it:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15436451/LGBT-charity-Stonewall-money-drop-funding.html

The sad thing is that they were an effective organisation who did a lot of good. Then got bewitched by the TQ.

Quite. There's been a few of us here watching this with interest for the last couple of years.

It's been predictable.

Their last set of accounts very much looked like they were firmly headed for the rocks - especially knowing that lots of their sources of income (within the UK) had been pulled in that year before Trump.

And well, here we are washed up on those rocks.

Mermaids are in equally dire straits. They are currently in deficit but the Trustees are confident they will return to surplus next year.

If they'd just done what it says on the tin and defended homosexuality, instead of calling it an outdated medical term, they'd be rolling in it, not haemorrhaging it.

In the words of one of their more irritating campaigns:

SOME CHARITIES GO TITS UP. GET OVER IT.

Mermaids and Stonewall are both coming to the end of the grift. They played a blinder for as long as they were allowed to gaslight everyone. Maybe they can rebrand themselves Stonemaids or Merwall?

I just had a look at the Mermaids annual report:

https://tinyurl.com/3ys2xvc4

Page 28 has a summary of their current financial situation. (Embarrassingly, it also has a heading "Principle source of funds" - oops.)

Here's the summary if you don't want to click on the link:

The charity’s income in 2024–25 was £1,337,662, an increase of 14% on the previous year (£1,174,597). However, this was still significantly lower than the level of income achieved in previous years (2022–23: £2.34 million).

Corporate donations, grants from trusts and foundations, and income from the training function decreased dramatically during 2023–24, primarily as a result of Mermaids being the subject of a Charity Commission Statutory Inquiry. This was caused by significant reductions in corporate, trusts and grant fundraising, alongside a reduction in income earned through trading. Due to significant delays in the publication of the Charity Commission’s Statutory Inquiry report, this position did not start to improve until after October 2024, when the report was published with no significant adverse findings. Therefore, the income recovery in 2024-25 was much slower than anticipated.

Following a shortfall of income over expenditure (deficit) of £777,748 in 2023-24, for the reasons noted above, opening reserves on 1 April 2024 were £226,224 (down from £1,003,972 on 1 April 2023).

Despite the ongoing challenges to income, 2024-25 saw a much lower shortfall than the prior year, with expenditure exceeding income by £285,496. This was a result of significant changes being made to reduce expenditure. Taking account of the £26,216 gain on investments made in the year, the net movement in funds for the year was a net cost (deficit) of £259,280.

Despite the reduction in the deficit, due to the reduced level of opening reserves, this resulted in a negative net asset position on 31 March 2025 of (£33,056). Of this, £67,122 was restricted and (£100,178) was unrestricted. There were no designated funds.

Over on Reddit, P-t-d has done some useful work:

After being surprised by how bad a position Stonewall's accounts showed them to be, I decided to do a quick check on our other organisations.

The reports currently out are for financial year ending in March 2025 and so predate the end of USAID and Trump's reduction in funding to our organisations.

Most of the organisations I looked at are charities and so have a operating Surplus/deficit rather than a Profit/loss however for easy comprehension I am using Profit/loss here.

Unlike commercial organisations charities shouldn't aim for large profits; they are obliged to spend what they receive however they shouldn't be making large losses either.

For those unaware, when looking at the health of charities one has to draw a distinction between Restricted and unrestricted funds/reserves.

It is a crime to spend Restricted funds on anything but their intended purpose. It is therefore possible for charities to collapse despite having full bank accounts on paper if those accounts are full of Restricted funds.

For this reason the Charity Commission advices charities to have a minimum of 3 months (with 4-6 preferred) operating costs in unrestricted funds in their reserves at any given time. I have noted where this has not been met.

That said, most charities fo not see their income drop to 0 overnight, so I have also noted how long charities can sustain their current losses based on their current reserves.

The results of my reading is concerning:

The LGBT Foundation
Income down on previous year.
Reserve is below 3 months operating costs.
Net loss of £280k
Reserves sufficient to sustain the loss for only 4 years.

Mermaids
Income down on previous year
Reserve is below 3 pr
operating costs.
Net loss of £280k
Reserves sufficient to sustain the loss for 1 more year. Urgent restructuring undertaken in 2025 to avoid collapse.

Gendered Intelligence
Income down on previous year
Reserve is below 3 months operating costs
Net loss of £290k
Reserves sufficient to sustain the loss for 1 more year.

GIRE
Income down on previous year.
Reserve is over 6 months operating costs.
Net loss of £16k.
Reserves sufficient to sustain the loss for 2 more years.

Consortium.lgbt
Income down on previous year.
Reserve is 4 months operating costs.
Net loss £49k.
Reserves sufficient to sustain the loss for 1 year.

TransActual
Not a charity, only 1 years accounts avaliable.
Reserve is much more than 6 months.
Net profit of £123

Translucent
Not a charity.
Accounts not properly made up- looks like they mean they meet their expenses through the private funds of the members on as needed basis.

LGBTYS
Income down on previous years.
Reserves are less than 3 months operating costs.
Unrestricted reserves are much less.
Net loss of £7k.
Substantial reserves of 387k can support the loss for a very long time.

I was furious at the lukewarm response from our organisations to FWS in April 2025, however I hadn't realised how bad the financial situation was across the board. I think this adds an important contextual clue to why we were abandoned.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1q5etdz/stateofthegame20242025/

And then someone asked about "anti-trans" 🙄charities/orgs, so he posted this:

Sex Matters First charity accounts not yet due. Comparing the last two sets of micro accounts from its time as a company suggests an operating profit of about £30k. Reserves to cover about 6 years of activity.

LGB Alliance Income up. £130k profit Reserves steady at 6 months operating costs.

FWS not a charity Comparing last two sets of accounts suggests a Profit of £80k

Fair Play For Women Not a charity- A true micro company. Looks financially inactive- looks like a single employee.

Bayswater Not a charity Too young to have accoubts

I am afraid I don't know the other terf groups.

I guess many funds are being pumped into TQ+ charities instead.

I suspect not, given the withdrawal of big companies as sponsors for Pride events I think many are stepping away from this area completely for fear of being linked to dodgy organisations if/when bad headlines happen.

Anyway, thoughts and prayers for Stonewall. We could have had a whip-round via a crowdfunder for them but those are off the table since Trans Bash Back started doxxing donors. #SadTimes all round, lads!

Imagine what might have been achieved if Stonewall had focussed their resources on homophobia in men's football.

Or gay rights in other countries.

But no. I remember them being such a brilliant organisation who effected such momentous change, and now they're just a busted flush who've pissed their ability to do good up a (stone)wall.

In some countries gay people still risk death either from homophobic violence or state sanctioned executions so why were these organisations focusing on medicating children and getting males into women’s sports and changing rooms.

A campaign to ensure trans people didn’t suffer active discrimination would have been justifiable but they went so far beyond that. They undermined so many of their achievements with TWAW approach.

I feel equally sad about the mess Amnesty International got itself into on this.

The extreme TRA have poisoned so much which will take years to unravel.

SW has the added problem that it Allison Bailey decides to appeal and gets leave to go the SC then that will cost them. Even if they are successful, you don’t recover your full costs as there is a standardised approach to calculating costs.

I love that the Reddit person did our work for us.

All very satisfying, isn't it? I assume that the downturn in income is largely due to a drop in government grants combined with a reduction in the number of corporates making donations and paying for diversity training or membership of allyship schemes.

And I imagine that it's only going in one direction now - I can't see an obvious reason why corporates and govt will start chucking money their way again. It's possible that they might get rescued by a wealthy donor or donors, I suppose.

I was very pleased to see this in the paper today OP. I'm hoping they run out of funds completely and cease to exist.

Jo Bartosch:

https://unherd.com/newsroom/stonewall-deserves-to-go-broke/

Or possibly some might merge? Would probably only prolong the demise, though.

I worked (briefly) with Stonewall back in the day, as part of my union exec role. Makes me so angry to think of how much good they could have continued doing.

Entirely self-inflicted...

I am a bi woman and they lost my support when my former workplace (a charity) circulated their equality and diversity workplace advice booklet to all employees. As a woman and as a feminist I was appalled by the content.

It is a shame that Stonewall wasted their historical legacy as a defender of gay rights and that some decent Stonewall front line staff might lose their job because the charity board and senior management chose to lead it in the wrong direction and turned it toxic and dogmatic.

Interesting analysis. All small organisations with fairly minimal funding but managing to be effective in their areas I would say. No sign of the right wing American millions though 🙄

I would imagine that Stonewall will look to the Scottish government and that in Westminster to bail it out. And no doubt they will oblige.

What makes you think that either government will oblige? Yes, government has continued to make grants to Stonewall (about half a million pounds in the financial year to March according to their report), but those will relate to specific activities. Who in government would be approving financial support to a charity just because it's in difficulty?

What makes me think that either government will oblige?

Well, the SNP is hardly neutral in its support, and trans lobbyists are well versed in the dark arts when it comes to Whitehall. Hope I am wrong. Time will tell.

Scottish Government handed Stonewall £400k in taxpayers’ money