Switchboard operates 5 nights a week (including most Bank Holidays), has 22 volunteers and has taken nearly 60,000 enquiries by phone, letter or e-mail since we started in 1975. We have a comprehensive and regularly checked database of information. We are involved in liaison with numerous local organisations and provide training for some of them, as well as for our own volunteers, but ……..

Switchboard suffers from a problem common to many voluntary groups, namely that funders are happy to provide money for new initiatives, but are often unwilling to pay for the boring, everyday running costs that keep the organisation going. We found it easy to obtain grants, for example, to organise ground-breaking conferences on LGB issues for Black and Minority Ethnic people and to raise awareness of LGB issues in North Notts - but at the moment we cannot find enough to cover our day-to-day costs.

As an organisation that supports LGBT people, Switchboard is - even in today - an organisation that many funders find controversial, so we appear low down on their priorities if we appear at all.

Can you help by making out a monthly standing order? We will be pleased with £1/month and anything more will render us positively ecstatic. As we are a registered charity, we can also claim back 28p tax on every £1 you donate.

Contact us if you would like us to send you a FRONGS form.

nottingham@lgswitchboard.fsnet.co.uk