Opening Doors is delighted to share its latest Annual Review 2021 – 2022 showcasing milestones and successes of the past year. 

The stunningly crafted document was produced by our supporter, Superunion, and is illustrated with portraits of our ambassadors, volunteers and staff to showcase the vibrancy and warmth of the LGBTQ+ community.  

The beginning of 2021 saw a significant rebrand of the charity name as we dropped ‘London’ to become now ‘Opening Doors’ to denote the charity becoming national from April 2022.  

We have also been working hard to restore as many of our regular in-person delivery work as possible with almost 20 regular groups up and running including specialist dementia support groups for members with a dementia diagnosis and/or caring for someone with a dementia diagnosis.  

Our Befriending service continues to grow from strength to strength with 120 active member relationships being supported.  

It was a great honour for our Befriending service to be recognised in The Guardian during Pride month to raise awareness of the services available to older members of the LGBTQ+ community.  

Another proud moment for the charity was being nominated for ‘Community or Charity Project of the year’ category at Diva Magazine alongside other amazing organisations.  

Our Pride in Care national quality standard has been getting attention from a range of organisations that want to evidence they are providing inclusive service – and this includes the fire service, carers organisations, hospitals and care homes. 

Looking ahead to the future we will be continuing to deliver unique opportunities for our members to access support and information by providing workshops on dementia, smoking cessation and menopause.  

Our inspiring cohort of ambassadors and volunteers will continue to support with our ground-breaking research projects to improve mainstream services for LGBTQ+ people over 50 within the heath, housing and care sector. 

We are also working closely with our various corporate partners, donors and supporters to maximise our fundraising impact with donations, campaigns and events such as our ‘Big Give Christmas Challenge’ which will be launching very soon. 

We are very proud of all we have achieved this past year and thank everyone who has supported Opening Doors along the way. 

Our Chair Julia Shelley said: ‘As we move into 2022/23, Opening Doors aims to continue to grow and develop our activities, despite the challenging climate in which we are all working. Everything we achieve would not be possible without the great support from our diverse range of funders, our hard-working staff team, our dedicated volunteers and all our Opening Doors members.’ 

You can read our Annual Review 2021-2022 here.

Credits:

Design and production: Superunion, London

Portrait photograph: Ian Crockart

Pride photography: Sydney McCourt

Printed in the UK by Pureprint