Project: LGBT+ Sustainable Futures

Grant: £30,000

In the first phase of its Connect Fund project, Consortium co-produced an Outcomes Framework with six LGBT+ organisations. This Framework is designed to support the LGBT+ sector to engage with the social investment market by providing a common language through which to communicate with social investors and other external stakeholders about their impact. Consortium will now encourage a range of diverse LGBT+ organisations across the sector to adopt this common approach. By working with a cohort of organisations to test and model the framework, Consortium will be able to provide case studies of the benefits it will bring to organisations and help build confidence across the sector to embed this new approach.

Four organisations and a number of smaller, grass-roots organisations will directly benefit from the expertise of both the Consortium staff and Traverse, the external consultant supporting the project. Consortium will also use the learning from this work to support the full range of its membership to articulate how they measure impact across their services and provide clear evidence for the difference their services make to individual LGBT+ lives in terms of social benefit and working towards financial benefit. By encouraging and facilitating the adoption of the Outcomes Framework across the sector, Consortium is helping create a common language of outcomes for all LGBT+ organisations, making it easier for them to demonstrate their impact to funders and investors. There is also scope for the Outcomes Framework to be adapted and used across other parts of the equalities sector.