Stonewall has confirmed that it made 44 employees redundant last year as its reserves fell below £100,000.
In February last year, the LGBTQ+ rights charity told staff it was restructuring following the US government’s decision to freeze aid spending, with up to half of its employees at risk of redundancy at the time.
The charity’s recently published accounts for the year to March 2025 show that it made 44 staff members redundant, spending £276,000 on related severance costs.
Its average number of employees in 2024-25 reduced by a third year-on-year to 76 while its staff costs fell by over a quarter to £3.66m.
The charity recorded a ninth consecutive operating deficit, with its total funds falling to £91,800 as of 31 March 2025 from £998,000 a year earlier.
Stonewall said it had taken action since last March, including through its restructure, to rebuild its reserves.
‘Significant period of transformation’
Stonewall’s income and expenditure both declined by more than £2m year-on-year to £4.74m and £5.65m, respectively, in 2024-25.
Corporate donations to the charity more than halved in 2024-25 to £143,000 while programmes income declined by 48% to £254,000.
The charity’s events income fell by 42% to £331,000 while fees from organisations subscribing to its various programmes declined by a quarter to £1.82m.
A Stonewall spokesperson said it underwent a “significant period of transformation and change” in 2024-25.
They said the financial challenges Stonewall faced reflected “economic uncertainty” across the charity sector and “significant turbulence” in the global LGBTQ+ movement.
“We began a deliberate period of reset and renewal, appointing a new chief executive in the latter half of 2024-25 and set about understanding both what impact we want to make as a charity and as importantly how we want to make it, with the publication of new strategic goals and new values,” they said.
“Stonewall has had an underlying deficit in recent years. During 2024-25 and up to 31 March 2025, Stonewall went through a period of restructuring, to significantly reduce its cost base and reset the organisation, in order to continue to deliver on the new strategy.”
The spokesperson added that action taken to address its financial position “is now reflected in positive financial results in the first half of the financial year 2025-26”.
