## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period** > Period start date **To**[Period end date ] 1[st] January 2023 31[st] December 2023 **From** ## Section A Reference and administration details **Charity name** Out Together **Other names charity is known by Registered charity number (if any)** 1188461 **Charity's principal address** 19 Church Lane Bardsey Leeds **Postcode LS17 9DH** ## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity** ||1
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20|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for**
**whole year**|**Name of person (or**
**body) entitled to appoint**
**trustee (ifany)**| |---|---|---|---|---|---| |||Tim Gittins|Chair
ActingTreasurer|13/3/24 - 31/12/24|| |||Katie Robinson|Vice Chair||| |||Judith Firman|Treasurer|01/01/24 – 13/08/24|| |||Hannah Bithell|||| |||AntonyBall|Secretary||| |||Sophie Linley||Appointed 10/09/24|| |||Sam Glenister-Batey||Appointed 10/09/24|| |||PerryLaw||Appointed 10/09/24|| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| |||**Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)**|||| |||**Name**||**Dates acted if not for whole year**|| ||||||| ||||||| **TAR** March **2012** 1 ## **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)** **Type of adviser Name Address** ## **Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)** ## **Section B Structure, governance and management** ## **Description of the charity’s trusts** Type of governing document Constitution (eg. trust deed, constitution) How the charity is constituted Charitable incorporated organisation (eg. trust, association, company) Trustee selection methods Appointed by board of trustees (eg. appointed by, elected by) ## **Additional governance issues (Optional information)** You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant, about: - policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees; - the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works; - relationship with any related parties; - trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them. ## **Section C Objectives and activities** **Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document** To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by working with people who are socially excluded on the grounds of their age and sexual orientation (in particular, elderly people who identify as **TAR** March **2012** 2 LGBT+) to relieve the needs of such people and assist them to integrate into society, in particular by: - (a) providing a local network group that encourages and enables members to interact more effectively with the wider community (including the young LGBT+ community); and - (b) raising public awareness of the issues affecting elderly people who identify as LGBT+ generally and in relation to their social exclusion.” - 1. Improve the ability, opportunity for and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity - 2. Develop a collaborative out-reach strategy, with other agencies where needed, that helps find and identify people who could otherwise be excluded - 3. Build an organisation to offer them befriending, signposting to other relevant organisations, and an inclusive network group which welcomes, protects and safeguards them - 4. Design and implement a social media and PR strategy to - **Summary of the main** communicate effectively with members and to promote - **activities undertaken for the** external awareness of Out Together, especially within the - **public benefit in relation to** LGBT community, that will foster mutual support - **these objects (include within** 5. Encourage members to mobilize their individual skills and - **this section the statutory declaration that trustees have** work together to realise and develop their strengths, with a **had regard to the guidance** range of regular activities and events that will encourage **issued by the Charity** members to keep well, have fun and stay connected **Commission on public** 6. Implement a fundraising programme that will minimise the **benefit)** dependency on, and uncertainty of, external grants needed to support continuing operations During the period the trustees have had due regard to the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance and have taken this into account when making a decision to which the guidance is relevant. ## **Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)** **TAR** March **2012** 3 You **may choose** to include further statements, where relevant, about: - policy on grantmaking; - policy programme related investment; - contribution made by volunteers. All our activities are volunteer led and we encourage and support out membership to be involved in the works of the charity. ## Section D Achievements and performance ## **Our Strategic Planning** We based our Plan for 2023 on strategic objectives we adopted in November 2022. - Implement a fund-raising program that will minimise the dependency on, and uncertainty of, external grants needed to support continuing operations - Develop and expand outreach and tele-friending programmes - Establish inclusive social network groups and activities, both digitally and close to where people live - Develop inter-generational links to encourage individuals to share and learn from life experiences - Recruit corporate and individual partners and supporters to help promote and finance the charity - Promote greater public awareness of the specific impacts that affect LGBT+ seniors more than their straight peers. - Improve our marketing, PR and social media programmes to communicate separately and effectively with individual stakeholders and audiences ## **Key achievements were** ## **Out Together rebranding** **TAR** March **2012** ## Section D Achievements and performance The great success of 2023 was the relaunch and renaming of the charity, resulting in a much higher profile based on greater inclusivity. At the relaunch we brought together representatives from diverse sectors of the community; it significantly boosted our profile and established new corporate and individual relationships, which strengthened over the year, from organisations wishing to work with us, and from individuals wanting to use their skills to help us achieve our goals. Following the official charity name change to “OUT TOGETHER” in March, we began using our new logo, domain and email address across all our communications. This was a big step forward in breaking the links to the past. The new branding gave us the confidence in April to bid for the ITV/Lottery _People’s Project Award_ that could have given us up to £70K in funding. Although we didn’t win, as a runner up we were awarded £10k, and achieved significant visibility from a peak time TV appearance and increased social media support. Our higher profile attracted LGBT+ groups from outside Leeds to contact us, which resulted in alliances with The Brunswick Centre in Huddersfield and with _Out in the Valley,_ a social group in Calderdale. Several joint meetings of our members and these groups took place. ## **Relationship building** The success of the relaunch led to us founding - Partners in Pride, for organisations sharing our values, aims and objectives; we gave several presentations to firms and their employees explaining our work and worked with others to help mark Pride and LGBT History Month. These included Wellington Place, Evri, Walker Morris, Weightmans, Leeds Law Society, Manchester Law Society - Club Out Together, for younger LGBTQ+ professionals, to realise the potential for all generations of our community with skills, dedication and commitment to work together to create lasting change. Beginning in September 2023 we started a series of networking events (each hosted by different Partners in Pride) for individuals to discuss the challenges LGBTQ+ people face. ## **Income and fundraising** Total income was £67,800, (2022 £63,327) an increase of 7.0% Our receipts from fundraising and donations increased by a remarkable 96.5% to £37,980 (2022 £19,327). Our income from grants declined to £29,700(2022 £44,000). We are satisfied that this reflected a move towards self-generated unrestricted funds away from project-specific grants which fund individual initiatives. Whilst the latter will continue to support much needed work, we recognised that our longer-term priority is to bid for core funding grants that will provide a sustainable foundation to grow our future capacity. |Grants received||| |---|---|---| |Sir George Martin Trust|£3,000|Developing regional hubs| |Leeds Community Fund|£4,000|Advocacy project| |Private individual|£2,400|Developing networks| |Peoples Project Lottery|£10,000|Telefriending| |Cognizant|£9,300|Digital Inclusion| Key fundraising events - The 2[nd] All Out Together Ball - raised over £8k in profit and attracted 160 supporters and corporate partners. - Leeds Law Society 2022/23 President’s annual dinner - chosen charity. Our higher profile undoubtedly boosted the proceeds of the raffle which raised £4250. ## **Events and Activities** **TAR** March **2012** Section D Achievements and performance The programme of regular members events continued, with 72 coffee and cake meet-ups in Leeds and Huddersfield, and 24 twice monthly lunches in Leeds. Attendance continued to grow. We organised one-off activities, including theatre visits and a seaside excursion. The annual Christmas party attracted 58 members and allies. ## **Digital inclusion** Our membership base includes a high proportion of people aged over 60. Although many of them can access the internet through broadband or smart phones, others are excluded for a variety of reasons. We communicate with them by phone and post, which adds to our workload. We were awarded a grant of £9k for a 12 month project beginning in 2024 that would survey our members needs and enable us to plan and implement a programme of activities designed to encourage all members to improve their digital skills. ## **Challenges we faced** ## **Communications** We were disappointed not to make sufficient progress improving our digital communications, and it was agreed that this would be a high priority for 2024. - Social media - Using external consultants we maintained a monthly programme of postings of our events and key activities that was successful in attracting new attendees, but we lacked internal expertise at management level to drive the system more effectively to reach targeted audiences. - Website Our website has been commended for its visual design but we made limited progress in maintaining the overall content. - Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) - The transitional planning we did in 2022 showed that our inherited system for emailing members and supporters was becoming unwieldy for a charity of our size. We were unable easily to segment our digital communications for the separate audiences amongst our stakeholders. Our regular newsletter readership increased to 170, but it was primarily an events-based update for members. Although we acknowledged that the longer-term solution was to replace the system, this would need careful planning, and was carried forward to 2024. ## **Telefriending** We extended the 12-month pilot with Opening Doors London (ODL) but renegotiated the fee to reflect the experience we had gained, and that changes affecting ODL had reduced their capacity. With an existing base of 12 telefriendees we were keen to continue the service, but by October 2023 it became clear that ODL was in financial difficulties and all new telefriending referrals were stopped. (In February 2024 ODL ceased operations altogether; we have been successful in finding an alternative provider). ## **Increasing Capacity and measuring impact** Many small charities are run by trustees who combine strategic and operational responsibilities. Our existing small management team of 3 (including1 part-time consultant) plus 3 volunteers succeeded in growing the charity’s operations, but not achieving the rate of expansion that would have been possible with more managers and volunteers. We did not want to curtail our ambitions but struggled to devote enough time to the strategic efforts needed to boost capacity. During the year we engaged with experts at the National Lottery Community Fund and at the Cranfield Trust and learned how this restricting cycle can trap a charity in a constant state of being under capacity. We were considered very investable to funders, with the potential to deliver significant measurable and sustainable **TAR** March **2012** 6 ## Section D Achievements and performance outcomes. To achieve sustainable growth with a larger, more effective team would require longer-term core funding based on planning for at least a 3-4 year period. We learned that many longer-term funding providers require evidence-based impact reports, which require baselines for tracking change or progress. We accepted that we had no realistic methodology for measuring our impact and the effectiveness of our collaboration with stakeholders. We concluded that as soon as it was feasible we would use a strategic planning tool known as Theory of Change. Another limitation we have faced in addressing impact is that our community is primarily invisible, and therefore difficult to identify. In January 2023 West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) published a report from the Census 2021 about Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity. This provided for the first-time accurate data on LGBTQ+ demographics across the five local authorities in our region, for example that there were 6385 people aged 55 and over who identified as LGB, or that 11383 people stated that they have a different gender identity than the sex they were registered with. The information we can obtain from the Census results will strengthen our efforts to secure funding and partnerships by highlighting the scale and importance of our work. For the first time we can quantify and champion the interests of our community based on real numbers, and set realistic, data-driven goals. ## **Outlook for 2024** At the time of writing this report we can look back at a very successful year so far with progress being made on recruitment of new trustees aligned with the objectives and requirements of the charity and with a sound financial base to support the continuation of our strategic plan. ## **Section E Financial review** **Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves** The charity aims to ensure that there are sufficient funds to allow it to continue its operations for at least three months without income. As the operational costs of the charity have been very low, the policy will be reviewed to reflect the plans for future expansion. ## **Section F Other optional information** **TAR** March **2012** 7 **Section G Declaration** **The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.** **Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees** |**Signature(s)**
**Full name(s)**
**Position (eg Secretary,**
**Chair, etc)**
**Date**||ABall|| |---|---|---|---| ||Timothy Paul Gittins|Antony Ball|| ||
Chair|Secretary|| ||30/10/24||| ||30/10/24||| **TAR** March **2012** 8 **OUT TOGETHER 1188461 Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period** Period start date Period end date **To from** 01/01/2023 31/12/2023 ## **Section A Receipts and payments** |**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest**
**£**
**37,980**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**37,980**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**37,980**
**16,347**
**2,421**
**4,101**
**12,850**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**35,719**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**35,719**
**2,261**
**- 237**
**10,720**
**12,744**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**29,700**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**29,700**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**29,700**
**11,889**
**3,195**
**2,950**
**12,500**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,534**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,534**
**- 834**
**237**
**12,397**
**11,800**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**37,980**
**29,700**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**67,680**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**67,680**
**28,236**
**5,616**
**7,051**
**25,350**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**66,253**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**66,253**

**1,427**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**37,980**
**29,700**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**67,680**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**67,680**
**28,236**
**5,616**
**7,051**
**25,350**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**66,253**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**66,253**

**1,427**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |Fund raisingand donations|**37,980**|||||**19,327**| |Grants|**-**|||||**44,000**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| |**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**37,980**|||||**63,327**| |||||||| |**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||| ||**-**|||||| ||**-**|||||**-**| |**_Sub total_**|**-**|||||**-**| |**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||| |||||||**63,327**| |||||||| |Direct cost of charitable activities|**16,347**|||||**19,572**| |Administration|**2,421**|||||**4,491**| |Communications and PR|**4,101**|||||**5,810**| |Consultancy|**12,850**|||||**23,400**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| ||**-**|||||**-**| |**_Sub total_ **|**35,719**|||||**53,273**| |||||||| |**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**||||||| ||**-**|||||| ||**-**|||||| |**_Sub total_ **|**-**|||||**-**| |**_Total payments_**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_**||||||| |||||||**53,273**| |||||||| ||**2,261**|**- 834**|**-**|
**1,427**||**10,054**| ||**- 237**|**237**|**-**|**-**||**-**| ||**10,720**|**12,397**|**-**|**23,117**||**-**| ||**12,744**|**11,800**|**-**|**24,544**||**10,054**| CCXX R1 accounts (SS) 1 ## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period** |**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B1 Cash funds**
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)|**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
CAF BANK
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
Signature
2|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**12,744**
**11,800**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,744**
**11,800**
OK
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Timothy Gittins|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**| |---|---|---|---| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||OK| ||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**Current value**
**(optional)**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**Current value**
**(optional)**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**When due**
**(optional)**| ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||30/10/2024| ||||| ||2||| CCXX R2 accounts (SS) CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of Out Togelher (formerly Friends of Dorothy) On accounts for the year ended 31 December 2023 Charity no lif any) 1188461 Set out on pages CC16a I report lo the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity I'the Trust") for the year ended 31 1 1 1013 Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ("the Act"). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Acl and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145{5)Ib) of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have ome to my attention (other than that disclosed below ') in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect.. accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with the accounting records Independent examiner's statement I have no Goncerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination lo which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply. Signed: Date: 2511012024 Name: Mr Charfes Dunning ACA Relevant professional qualification(sl or body {frf any): Chartered Accountant {ICAEW) Address: 32 Coronation Avenue, Normanlon, WF6 2LW IER October 2018 Section B Disclosure Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight mallers of concern (see CC32. Independent examination of charity accounts.. directions and guidance for examiners). Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose. None. IER October 2018