A charity which distributes money raised by Brighton Pride reportedly owes local organisations more than £130,000 in unpaid grants, some going back to 2022.
People with knowledge of the impact on some of the charities which haven’t been paid by the Brighton Rainbow Fund – which is independent of Pride – say the worst affected are already scaling back activities and could even be at risk of closure.
Trustee Christopher Gull said he was standing down last week because of “bad decisions” after its latest accounts showed about £280,000 had been given or loaned to non-profit companies he runs. The fund has also referred itself to the Charity Commission, which is deciding whether to investigate.
Unlike the charity’s annual grants, these awards – a £220k grant to the Ledward Centre, which was set up by BRF, and an unsecured £48k loan to the struggling company which runs Scene magazine – were not publicly announced.
Mr Gull and his fellow trustee Jane Pritchard declined to answer questions as to whether the independent panel which awards BRF grants had signed off the transfers, or was aware of them.
Both said that as The Ledward Centre is a BRF project, they did not believe its award was a conflict of interest. All payments to both organisations have now been halted.
By far the largest donor to BRF is Brighton Pride, but it also receives donations from Bear Patrol, Brighton Bear Weekend and local LGBTQ+ venues, as well as taking donations directly and doing its own fundraising.
One person with connections to an affected charity said: “It’s been an open secret for months. In spring, the community groups started to talk to each other and set up a repayment schedule which kept getting missed by the Rainbow Fund.
“As a charity, if you are giving out a loan there needs to be all sort of checks and balances. I’m told the trustees doubt it will ever get paid back.
“The Rainbow Fund monopolises fundraising in Brighton. When we’ve asked LGBTQ bars around Brighton if they’d fundraise for us, they say no, they only raise money for the Rainbow Fund.
“There’s so many groups that rely on the Rainbow Fund – even just to have a basketball game once a week.
“There’s huge worries about speaking out because what if the trustees remember who said what when the next funding round happens.”
Another, who has been raising concerns with the fund since 2022, said: “It is my understanding that some great charities including Lunch Positive and Switchboard are awaiting payments and it has had a detrimental impact on them.
“Pride have a big decision to make in my opinion as real questions remain as to whether they need a third party to distribute the funding.
“Why should The Rainbow Fund decide what projects are worthwhile in the area, especially now?
“A better system would be to distribute the money raised by Pride directly amongst the great charities in Brighton without the need of a middle organisation. The Sussex Beacon, THT, Lunch Positive, Switchboard – and The Ledward Centre could be included as part of this.
“I urge people to not lose sight that the charities listed above, and there are more, need some real support currently. If you have any concerns donate directly to them.”
Since 2022, the biggest recipients of BRF grants have been Lunch Positive, The Clare Project, Trans Pride and the Brighton and Hove Switchboard, which were pledged a total of £140,000.
Brighton and Hove News understands the bulk of these grants have not been paid – and that the 2023 funding round was opened even though many other 2022 grants were outstanding.
All the organisations listed as grant recipients have been contacted for comment. Only one, Pathways to Health, said they had been paid the grant. None of the others replied, except Brighton and Hove Switchboard, which said it was their policy not to comment on this story to the media.
Last week, Brighton Pride said it was awaiting the outcome of the Charity Commission enquiry, and reviewing how it manages fundraising arrangements with community partners.
So who is owed what & when are they paying it back? Why won’t the charities speak to you??
The whole point of the fund is to fund grassroots lgbt groups. Don’t mention ‘monopolisation of funding’ in the same breath as much larger orgs mentioned who have fundraising teams/staff and statutory funding eg. THT or Sussex Beacon.
Not undermining their great work, but the ones affected by this don’t have significant reserves and are at risk of closure – they don’t have the funds or resources to recover from this.
There needs to be reform for the redistribution of Pride donations AND assets, and not solely centred around services with significantly larger standing. The donations from pride have dwindled over the years due to various reasons, so wider fundraising climate of Brighton needs to be impartial, while community led – there is a way to do that with or without this fund.
Hi Graham,
I agree on THT but I know The Beacon very well having used their fabulous services and they have had big statutory cuts, they are only funded to about 1/3rd now and need to raise over £1m a year to survive. They are not a wealthy charity with big reserves at all
Couldn’t agree more.
I respect the work the beacon do however the charities being affected are significantly smaller – £20/30k incomes or £200k at most. Sussex Beacon has huge hold over fundraising events such as the half marathons. I’m not saying they’re undeserving of support but it’s not a fair suggestion to put them in the same pot.
Well said, not dissing the beacon and THT but they are multi million pound organisations and have a tight grip on all local fundraising already. they have paid fundraising budgets, staff and fundraising departments. what ever their financial situation, it’s the grassroots groups that need the help from rainbow fund, if it is available.
thank you graham, very grateful for the comments. I am in one of the groups affected by this, and grassroots groups need this so much. We miss out a lot on all the chances given to the larger charities. the grassroots groups will close without this, the large charities will not.
Ok, it’s time to claw back the loan to Gscene. Whatever they have in the bank needs to be used to repay the loan. Chris Gull you should do this today! How you sleep at night knowing you took money from needing charities to give to your failing magazine that no one even reads anymore is beyond me. It had its hay day when James Ledward was alive but its over…..Time to move on.
If this means the Magazine goes under then so be it. If it’s not viable it can’t survive. The charity’s won’t survive without this money so an online magazine which no one reads anymore is no great loss…. Also how has so much money is being spent on the Ledward Centre needs to be addressed. From my reckoning its had almost half a million in funding and fundraising and grants. What’s it been spent on? It’s a cafe with empty rooms downstair. Time to Chris Gull, Jane Pritchard and Maria Baker to come clean on what they have been unto behind everyones back…
Well, go talk to Sian Berry about why Coca-Cola might be withholding future contributions.
Can the BRF not simply explain why the grants have not been paid? It’s unbelievable incompetence that this is happening. Why can’t BRF improve their social media and be more transparent about what they do? How much was raised from the recent Charles Street fundraiser? If they owe so much money to groups, they shouldn’t be allowed to hold fundraising events. There should be a public meeting held to discuss this.
Why do they give grants to organisations such as MindOut and Switchboard who have large reserves and huge wage costs?
The writer of this article Jo Wadsworth needs to check on facts as obviously does not have a clue about our community and is implying that Mr Gull who does loads of good work is benefitting. The money went to the Ledward Centre and the Scene magazine( not Gscene as Jo states). James Ledward set up the Rainbow fund as Pride was losing money and loads of money has been raised for our community since. Covid hit the scene magazine badly plus our venues so advertising never picked up again afterwards.
I suppose Jo Wadsworth does not want to know the truth as it won’t make a good story for him and instead is trying to destroy the rainbow fund.
Robert, with respect I would suggest you read the accounts and Chris own admissions within them/his own statement
The RF has granted money to charities and not paid them, at the same time they have loaned money – without a formal agreement to Scene Magazine – with the accounts stating an intention for over £40k to be paid back by Scene in 12 months- as they are struggling that was never going to happen.
The RF also paid for the flights of Chris while struggling to pay the charities they owed money to
The RF still says on its website that any donation will go straight to charities as they have ‘no administration costs’ that is not true and the accounts show many thousands of costs over the last few years
The RF have not been part of the Fundraising Regulator which charities that distribute money are meant to join
I am not blaming solely Chris as the RF has other trustees who have equally messed up in my opinion but the accounts are very bad – including Chris admitting to not declaring conflicts of interest
Hi Robert,
Apologies for getting the name of the magazine wrong – I didn’t clock the name had changed as its url is still gscene.
I have changed that, and added a link to my original story which does give some of the background you outline there.
I absolutely don’t want to destroy the Rainbow Fund – nothing could be further from the truth. Ideally, this story would be covered by the city’s LGBTQ+ media – but for obvious reasons, that can’t happen here. There clearly are questions to be answered though – otherwise the trustees wouldn’t be referring themselves to the Charity Commission. And the impact the situation is having is also clearly very real.
You also need to change the headline for the other article on this subject. You’ve been told several times ‘Pride charity trustee” is not an accurate term, just put Rainbow Fund.
Robert, there are many people in the community who have known this has been going on for many years and been trying to call it out. The issue with the Rainbow fund has been ongoing for over 15 years. Many of us are grateful to Brighton and hove news for finally exposing what’s going on and bringing some accountability. This is just issues raised in the last funding round if it was dug into deeper you will see hundreds of thousands disappearing from the accounts over the last 10/15 years if not more. The article has also raised interesting information about how much money the Ledward Centre has received.
Thank you Jo for writing this excellent article and blowing ten years of cover up out the water.
Well written. This has been going on for a long time but I never imagined on such a high scale. Questions need to be asked about why the list of grants recorded on the Rainbow Fund website is incomplete and why their news events coverage is so rarely updated. Take for example this page on their site. https://www.rainbow-fund.org/rainbow-fund-first-blog/
It says: “We are going to use this space to allow everybody to know how the money that is raised for us to give as grants is benefiting so many people in our LGBT+ and HIV communities. We will post progress reports on the local projects that we´re currently funding, ”
It ends: “So that was the presentation..and this blog will be reporting back on these projects, and more over the next weeks and months.”
There’s just one report and that was SIX years ago. It was written my Mr Gull so why hasn’t another been written since?
Their list of grants given out ends at 2019/20 Why?
yes, agree with you and where has all the money that went to the ledward centre gone? its not a tribute to James at all.
If it is over £130,000 yet to be distributed, how has it been allowed to get to this stage? That’s what we need to be told and why a public meeting is required.
Complain to the Charity Commission re misconduct david.holdsworth@charitycommission.gov.uk
This Charity Commission page is interesting. https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/5132501/financial-history
Five sets of accounts 2019-2023 – three of them have income more than expenditure and overall expenditure is only £140,000 more than income.
https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/5132501/accounts-and-annual-returns
Last four returns all delivered late, not breaking the record of 2019 when 183 days late.
Helps to see comments here. The other news in Brighton News had good comments too. End of day exactly how much money was loaned by Chris Gull and Rainbow Fund to the Scene magazine and Ledward Centre? How was it loaned to them when there is no way of paying back, its fraud? too much sentimental thinking, let go of these things that no one uses. Pay the groups that are owed the money and give the funds to the groups that need it most.