Help us reduce isolation during the Covid-19 outbreak

Donate Fundraise

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far and helped in raising urgent funds to support us in adapting our services in response to Covid-19. However we still need your help and support during this very difficult period so that we can continue to offer a service for older LGBTQ+ people who have become significantly more isolated and vulnerable as the lockdown continues. With an increased demand for our services, we've decided to raise our target to be able to support as many people as we can.

Why do we need your help at this time?

We've now moved the majority of our befriending clients from face-to-face visits to receiving phone calls under our telefriending scheme. Sadly we can't offer this service to those who experience difficulties in using a phone.
22% of our members have have no digital access/experience. We are now phoning every one of them to ask how we could best support them and offering each one telefriending
This has resulted in a huge increase in demand for our telefriending service - over 10 new referrals a day
We are also getting an increase of calls from across the UK for this service and we've even had calls from isolated LGBTQ+ people in the States and Europe who just need need some support and a friendly ear.
To match this increase we need to expand our team so that we can continue to deliver a service we are proud of and that continues to offer support to those most in need
We need to recruit, train and support new volunteers and be able to match those to clients as quickly as possible

We are taking calls from people with nothing in their fridge, whose carers have stopped coming - in one instance because they found out the person was gay. There are calls from people who have run out of medication, who can't get out of the house to buy food, are scared and don't know what to do. We can help all of these people by listening, referring to statuary agencies or organisations supplying food parcels and by being the only person they've had any contact with in weeks.

Opening Doors remains totally committed to our mission of reducing loneliness and social isolation among older LGBTQ+ people and we are doing everything we can to honour that commitment.

Please continue to support us in raising money so that we can deliver a service to those LGBTQ+ people who are most vulnerable and alone at this time - it will make a huge difference and help to bring some comfort into people's lives.