HERO (aka GMFA) annual report 2015 to 2016

ANNUAL REPORT 2015/16 Health Equality and Rights Organisation (trading as GMFA)

Company number: 2702133 Charity number: 1076854 The Health Equality and Rights Organisation (HERO) grew out of GMFA (formerly Gay Men Fighting AIDS) to enable the organisation to use the same model of peer-led health interventions for the lesbian, bisexual and trans communities as for gay men. The sexual health projects for gay men that HERO delivers, which remain the core of HERO’s work, retain the well-recognised GMFA branding. This report refers to the organisation as HERO. Most references to projects use GMFA, as the brand which was utilised.

L A U Q E H T T L O A N E E H R L A A GAY MEN UNTIL WE HAVE EQU

OUR GOALS • End HIV-related stigma.

• Eradicate new infections among gay men.

• Ensure gay men have access to information and support to enable them to make the best health choices for themselves.

• Improve gay men’s sexual health.

• Support gay men to live emotionally and physically healthy lives.

For more information about GMFA’s strategy for 2016–2019, please visit: https://www.gmfa.org.uk/gmfa-strategy.

GMFA believes that all gay men should have the best possible health. To achieve this, gay men need better information and support to help us make appropriate choices to ensure we lead healthy lives – physically, emotionally and sexually.

Gay men are more likely to smoke. We are more likely to drink and to take drugs.

We do not take enough exercise. We have higher rates of cardiovascular disease, asthma and diabetes. We are more likely to take our own lives and to self-injure and are more likely to experience depression or anxiety. These challenges to gay and bisexual men’s emotional health are often exacerbated by societal attitudes that demean LGBT people and, in extreme cases, threaten our physical safety.

We also continue to face significant challenges when it comes to sexual health, including HIV. Public Health England now estimates that, across the UK, one in 20 gay and bisexual men between the ages of 15-44 is living with HIV1, with much greater prevalence in London and other metropolitan areas. Despite increases in uptake of HIV testing 14% of these men are unaware they are living with HIV. Gay and bisexual men now account for the majority of new HIV diagnoses in the UK. In other areas of health, all men face challenges. One man in five will die before he reaches the age of 65; two in five will die before the age of 75. Men have lower life expectancy than women – on average 79 years, compared with 83 years for women. These differences play out across every part of the UK, with men having both lower life expectancy at birth and at the age of 65.

This needs to change.

GMFA has been campaigning for better gay men’s health since 1992. Despite significant improvements in legal, social and political equality for gay men in this time, there is still a lot to do to ensure gay men have health equality.

THIS IS WHY GMFA EXISTS. 1

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HIV in the UK – Situation Report 2015: Incidence, prevalence and prevention.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE IN 2015-2016 Message from the former Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Hodson: GMFA was founded in 1992, so when I joined, way back in January 1999, it had been going for just under seven years. I was still relatively young then so for me this felt like forever. Although by this point we did have effective treatment, HIVrelated sickness and death were still common themes in our lives. At the time I had been diagnosed with HIV for about eight months.

At my job interview I pretended to be cooler about that diagnosis than I actually was. I thought that I probably had about 20 years left to live and I wanted to do some good in that time. GMFA was the obvious place to work. It was the charity that I related to. It was smart, direct and unapologetic for celebrating gay sexuality and gay sex.

The world has changed enormously since that time. Our progress towards LGBT equality is a part of that but there have also been significant changes in sexual health. HIV is now a long-term, eminently treatable condition. We know now that people with HIV who are on effective treatment are not infectious. We have PEP. At some point we will have PrEP. But the challenges have evolved as well.

The effectiveness of treatment has an impact on the value that men place on sexual safety. Greater social acceptance and dating apps mean that we now have a much more diffuse gay scene and our traditional gay spaces are under threat.

Concerns around other STIs get ignored because energy has been concentrated into the efforts of tackling ‘the big one’. As a community we still struggle to adequately address the inequalities that gay men experience in mental and emotional health that contribute not only to unsafe sexual behaviour, but also to damaging levels of drug and alcohol use.

Constant reorganisation of public health budgets has not been able to disguise the fact that pretty much year on year less money is spent on HIV prevention.

The UK spends 50 times more on HIV treatment than we spend on prevention.

At GMFA we have always managed to make a little money go a long way.

Frequently I meet people whose imagination of GMFA is as a huge organisation, rather than just a few of us, sitting in an office, working frantically hard to inform, support and empower hundreds of thousands of gay men, and other men who have sex with men, throughout England, the UK and, indeed, the world.

Through our website and FS, and our social media, a small charity like ours can reach the kind of numbers that we only dreamed about when we were trudging around bars with clipboards.

After 17 amazing years, more than half my adult life, it’s now time for me to move on to new challenges and opportunities. I’m really happy that my colleague Ian Howley, who has helped shape FS into the compelling and vital resource that it now is, will be taking over from me at GMFA. Ian’s passion for improving the mental health of LGBT people, the field he worked in prior to joining GMFA, will open up new possibilities for the organisation, at a time when HIV prevention funding is drying up but the health inequalities experienced by gay men and other members of our LGBT communities persist.

I’m enormously proud of GMFA’s ability to engage gay men with information about sexual health, to challenge HIV-related stigma and to open up debates about chems, racism and the way that our community looks after its own (or sometimes fails to). I am indebted to all of my colleagues at GMFA throughout the years, both volunteers and staff, who have taught me so much and inspired me with their talent, wisdom and passion.

I’m still passionate about the work that GMFA does. Every month over 100,000 gay men get information from the GMFA and FS websites, but these resources still receive no government funding. I believe it’s crucial that our community can access information that is not only frank, honest and reliable but that doesn’t judge gay men for our sexual choices.

So if, like me, you believe that sexual health information for gay men should acknowledge that sex is nothing to be ashamed of, and that gay men’s health should be valued, I hope that you will continue to show your support for the organisation. GMFA’s work is too valuable to be lost.

Matthew Hodson

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ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE IN 2015-2016 Message from the Interim Chief Executive Officer, Ian Howley:

Message from HERO’s Chair, Alan Palmer:

Firstly, I would like to say that I am honoured to have been appointed the new Interim Chief Executive Officer of HERO. I joined HERO back in 2010 as the Associate Editor of FS and Online Communications Officer. After 18 months I was appointed Editor of FS and Online Communications Manager. In my time as Editor, we have seen FS grow from a health promotion magazine to a world leader in highlighting issues gay and bisexual men face in today’s world. FS now gets picked up by LGBT news sites throughout the world and has grown into a global brand.

Before I even really knew about HERO I was being influenced by its work. The ‘How risky is…’ section of the website was something I used all the time in a previous sexual health volunteering role. Through using it to support others, I learnt more and more about sexual health and risk reduction – helping others and myself. And when I moved to London in 2011 I was introduced to GMFA directly by a friend, walked with them for my first Pride parade in London, and then started volunteering for them – on campaigns, photoshoots, fundraising and Gay Sports Day. I joined the Board last year as a Director, and this year was elected Chair of HERO.

GMFA can boast a near 100,000 social media reach. We lead the way when it comes to using social media to target gay and bisexual men with interactive health interventions.

Using my experience I plan to not only continue the excellent work HERO does but to help the charity grow.

We are still in challenging financial times but with some hard work and innovative thinking I am sure that HERO will not only grow but become a world leader in LGBT health.

I look forward to the challenges ahead and I hope you will support us on our journey.

Ian Howley

Volunteering in any role is immensely satisfying. I’ve volunteered consistently for 30 years and it continues to inspire me. I am immensely excited about the opportunity to chair HERO. We have done so much over the last 25 years, but there is still much more to do.

HERO is at the forefront of challenging things. We do not accept that just because the legal situation has changed that everything is done. We still have to change views and make the case for acceptance in all walks of life. Good sexual health is about so much more than condoms and testing. It’s about being confident, being emotionally sound, being secure. The foundation of good physical and sexual health is good emotional health.

This is why I got involved in HERO, and why I’m so pleased to be Chair. I am committed to ensuring that HERO continues to provide the frank, accurate information to gay and bisexual men to enable them to make the choices that are right for them to live their healthiest lives. The need is still there, so working with the Board and the staff team, one of my main aims is to see HERO not just survive, but to get better and bigger to be able to provide information, advice and support to more people.

Alan Palmer

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GMFA continues to innovate and inspire.

WEBSITES:

Over the course of the year GMFA continued to harness the creativity of its volunteers and staff and the power of social media and other platforms to deliver effective, ground-breaking HIV prevention and sexual health interventions.

We continued to develop the GMFA sexual health website, with a restructure to make information more accessible. Over the course of the year our website, including FS online, received over 1.5 million visits, an increase of 38% on our previous most successful year (2014–15), remaining comfortably over 100,000 visits each month.

GMFA continues to build on its reputation as a leader within gay men’s health promotion. Once again, through our websites and online magazine, and through new media campaigns we reached more gay men this year, in the UK and worldwide, than in any previous year. We utilised innovative methods to engage gay men with HIV prevention and sexual health, to challenge HIV-related stigma and to examine the broader context of the health inequalities that beset gay men.

GMFA is able to reach such a large proportion of gay men because our interventions, developed in conjunction with our volunteers, speak to and engage with gay men, using the same language and references that they recognise and identify with.

As HERO we have the capacity to apply the same approach to tackling health inequalities in work for the lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, in addition to the gay men that we serve.

Here are just some of our achievements over the course of the year:

The majority of the traffic remained UK based, although we also received considerable numbers of visitors from the USA, Australia, India and Pakistan.

The website is dynamic, with new content regularly posted to the home page, as well as news, blog posts and details of GMFA events. This greatly increases our ability to engage our visitors with new data, developments and thinking in HIV prevention and support and general gay men’s health and wellbeing.

New content generated this year included a triage tool for gay and bi men in East London and new pages to support the ‘More to Safer Sex’ campaign.

The website supplied content for, and was supported

by GMFA’s social media presence, with visitors coming to the site from Twitter and Facebook increasing rapidly throughout the year.

The redesign of the website gave us the opportunity to place adverts on the site, either for GMFA’s own campaigns or fundraising asks, or for other organisations and brands which are congruent with GMFA’s objectives.

The website redesign and ongoing information provision was part funded by a grant from MAC AIDS Fund.

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MEDIA CAMPAIGNS: As patterns of communication change, GMFA has changed the way it delivers campaigns. Social media has now become a vital (and cost effective) tool, enabling GMFA to reach larger numbers of gay men with campaigns and other information resources than we ever have before.

GMFA’s main sexual health campaign this year was the ‘More to Safer Sex’ campaign, part funded by a grant from the MAC AIDS Fund. The ‘More to Safer Sex’ campaign delivered frank, sexual health information about the variety of ways of reducing the risk of HIV transmission, including condom use, using the same language that gay men use conversationally with each other.

The campaign was one of the first major UK campaigns to discuss PrEP as a prevention option and managed to both generate and contribute to this discussion within and beyond the gay community.

The ‘More To Safer Sex’ campaign was launched on 10 December 2015 and reached an estimated 127,809 people through social media (Facebook and Twitter) in its first burst between 10 December and 31 December alone. We then brought it back for a second burst for the months of March and April, when we had a social media reach of 382,324 (Facebook, Twitter), meaning that the combined social media reach of the campaign passed the half million mark.

We also used this campaign to launch GMFA’s Instagram account. Although the numbers from this remain small at present, with 59 followers and 222 total likes on posts – we expect to build upon this in the future.

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In the run-up to World AIDS Day we delivered, through FS and other platforms, a range of materials challenging HIV-related stigma. Notably, our ‘HIVpositive guys read mean dating app messages’ video was viewed over 100,000 times within a week of being posted on YouTube, in addition to views on the Daily Mail website, where it was also posted. The video received international coverage, particularly across Europe, the US and Australia, which included the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed.

‘HIV Stripped Bare part II’ developed the concept that was initiated in 2014, showing empowering images of men living with HIV, and also received huge amounts of attention across national and international gay and mainstream media, including the Metro newspaper.

As HERO, our expertise in developing mass media and social media campaigns was utilised by a consortium of LGBT organisations to develop and deliver two interlinked campaigns encouraging LGBT people to recognise and report incidents of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crime.

The first strand of this campaign, ‘LGBT Hate Crime – recognise it, report it’ was launched in June 2015.

The second strand, ‘LGBT Hate Crime – talk, report, get support’ was launched in October.

The campaign was nominated for Media Campaign of the Year at the European Diversity Awards.

HERO’s Campaigns and Website Manager is Liam Murphy, who was recruited to the post in August 2014.

FS:

SOCIAL MEDIA:

FS is our bi-monthly sex and health magazine. FS provides health and HIV information, advice, support and research in a clear and understandable format, similar to that used by the commercial gay press, promoting information on gay men’s health and HIV issues. In this way the HIV prevention and sexual health promotion information is embedded within features that align with gay men’s interests and experiences.

Over the course of the year GMFA continued to increase its social media presence, specifically through Facebook and Twitter but also through a new Instagram account and a wildly successful video on GMFA’s You Tube channel.

Both GMFA and FS have their own Facebook and Twitter accounts, which signpost content on the websites, initiate health-related discussions with gay men and increase community engagement with GMFA’s interventions.

In 2015–16 FS was available in online and app editions. All content was also available free via the FS website, which was upgraded in November 2015.

Over the course of the year we recorded over 860,000 visits to the website, averaging 71,860 per month (monthly rates fluctuated depending on when in the cycle new issues were released). The magazine deals with gay men’s health holistically, recognising that good sexual health is inextricably linked with

emotional health and the ability to hold control over sexual choices. Topics featured included chems use, sexual racism, mental health, HIV stigma and open relationships. Some of the most popular articles included ‘Racism and the gay scene’, ‘Suck it – sex tips’, ‘There’s a new status in town – undetectable’, ‘Would you date an HIV-positive guy?’ and ‘The real sex lives of gay men’.

With GMFA’s permission, content from FS was regularly reprinted in Prowler magazine, Gay Star News, Pink News and Positive Lite as well as on other platforms, meaning that GMFA extended the reach of its work.

FS is funded from HERO reserves, advertising, donations and sales of the FS app.

The Editor of FS and Online Communications Manager during 2015-16 was Ian Howley, who was subsequently appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer of HERO in August 2016.

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Over the course of the year, GMFA’s Facebook page increased its followers from 8,492 at the end of the previous financial year, to 10,949 by the end of the year, an increase of almost 29% over the year. Even more impressively, FS started the year with 5,565 followers but, following some huge leaps in reach starting in December, finished the year with 16,033 followers, an increase of 188% (since the end of the year, the increase of FS followers each month has only sped up, so even that total looks likely to be dwarfed by the figure expected at the end of next year).

On Twitter the GMFA account started the year at 4,106 followers and finished with 5,115, an increase of 24.5%. The FS account started the year at 4,045 followers and finished with 5,282, an increase of 30.5%.

Our increase in followers means that our power to reach gay and bisexual men, not only in the UK but across the world, has increased enormously. Clicks on links on Facebook now make up a considerable proportion of FS readers, and using social media not only presents a cheap but effective platform for our work, but also allows us to interact with large numbers of gay men, listen and respond directly to their concerns and interests.

GROUPWORK:

OTHER PROJECTS:

GMFA provided groupwork events for gay and bisexual men in Tower Hamlets as part of the Connecting You partnership, funded from local authority HIV prevention funds. Getting a Boyfriend was run in April, the Sex Course in September and Getting a Boyfriend in February. The Tower Hamlets contract year is the calendar year, not the financial year.

Other projects included:

• HERO, working in partnership with Naz Project London, created an image bank of Black LGBT people for Public Health England. We over delivered on our commitment.

• HERO and GMFA delivered a series of Action

Learning Sets to improve engagement between LGBT organisations and Black and Minority Ethnic communities. The Learning Sets programme was funded by PHE and MAC AIDS Fund. The first session took place in March 2015 with the final session taking place in May. In addition to the series of Action Learning sessions we delivered a report on the programme.

At the end of the year GMFA formed a partnership with Naz Project London, London Friend and the Race Equality Foundation, named the Rise Partnership, and won the contract to deliver groupwork events in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham. As a result, GMFA has now recruited a new Groupwork and Training Manager, Nick Baker, who started employment in 2016-17.

• HERO collaborated on the AccessCare project,

in partnership with Kings College London and Marie Curie, to improve end of life care for LGBT people and support for their partners. GMFA’s role was to recruit participants to the research part of the project and sit on the project advisory board, with a particular brief to advise on media work and promotion and to produce a media resource.

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Study participants were successfully recruited and the study was promoted on gay media platforms, through National LGB&T Partnership and Consortium organisations and across GMFA’s social media. By the end of the year the second designed draft was with the contract holders awaiting approval.

• Work commenced on the first European

Chem Sex Forum. GMFA was one of the main organisers of the two and a half day event, in partnership with International HIV Partnerships and 56 Dean Street, which took place in April 2016.

• HERO’s Guidelines for Local Authorities and

Guidelines for LGBT organisations in developing smoking cessation for LGBT communities were published in July. This work was produced as part of GMFA’s contribution to the National LGB&T Partnership.

• GMFA continued to provide its partner

notification service and its HIV testing reminder service.

FUNDRAISING AND COMMUNITY EVENTS: GMFA took part in and organised a range of community and fundraising events throughout the year. These included:

MEDIA PRESENCE: • World AIDS Day

• London Pride

An impressive 75 GMFA staff, volunteers, supporters and dogs marched at London LGBT+ Pride 2015, sporting seX-Men tshirts, in reference to the Superheroes theme.

With the mean messages video and the HIV stripped bare campaign running, GMFA had its most successful World AIDS Day ever, raising over £24K at 20 different events over the end of November and the beginning of December. Highlights included a fundraiser at XXL, which raised £4K, a fundraiser at the Bloc Bar in Camden, organised by GMFA volunteer Tom Knight, which raised £500, and the Deconstructed album launch at the RVT on World AIDS Day itself, which raised £1,300. Balans in Soho created a Flash Freddie cocktail, with proceeds from sales going to GMFA.

GMFA continued to generate coverage of its campaigns and of FS, in particular across the gay media, both in the UK and internationally.

GMFA’s voice was heard in many of the major HIV-related stories which were covered by the mainstream media, including coverage of the inadvertent data leak from 56 Dean Street (Daily Express, The Guardian) and Charlie Sheen’s disclosure of his HIV status (the New Yorker Magazine, BBC Radio London).

In addition, GMFA was named as Recon’s World AIDS Day charity partner. GMFA supplied content to the dating site platform and received a whopping £12.8K in donations from the company and its users.

• Red Run

GMFA’s Chief Executive Officer Matthew Hodson took part in the Positive East Red Run 10K, raising over £1,000 for GMFA.

• Over the course of the year, other fundraising • GMFA/RVT Sports Day

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Despite torrential rain (for the second year running), which hampered our ability to collect money in buckets from spectators, fun was had and £2,323 was raised for GMFA at the ninth annual GMFA/RVT Sports Day.

events included a Spring Bank Holiday fundraiser at Comptons, a Nudity Dance Club Naked Charity Ball, Recon’s 15th birthday party, the Greenwich Gay Street Party and Ball, hosted by the London Titans, at the Two Brewers.

• GMFA volunteer Dan Hall ran the Paris Marathon, raising £1,787 for GMFA.

The Mean Messages video was covered in, among others, the Daily Mail website, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Gay Times, Attitude, Gay Star News, Pink News, Frontiers, Gay News Network, New Now Next, Daily Life, Towleroad, Same Same and the Irish Examiner.

HIV Stripped Bare part II was covered in, among others, Metro, Gay Times, Pink News, Gay Star News, Frontiers, New Now Next, Attitude, Yagg, Mako, San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, Instinct, Gay TV (Italian) and Antivirus.

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS:

GMFA_UK

Company number 2702133 Charity number 1076854 Registered office and operational address Unit 22, Eurolink Business Centre, 49 Effra Road, London, SW2 1BZ Previously of: 11 Ebenezer Street, London N1 7NP Directors Directors, who are also trustees under charity law, who served during the year and up to the date of this report were as follows: Daniel Beeson

(appointed 14 September 2016)

Seán Cassidy

(appointed 14 September 2016)

Siân Cook William England

(resigned 26 July 2016)

John Hanson

(Chair until 12 August 2015; Treasurer from 12 August 2015 until 23 July 2016; resigned 23 July 2016)

James Mack

(Vice Chair from 1 May 2014 until 12 August 2015; Chair from 12 August 2015 until 10 August 2016; resigned 10 August 2016)

Tim Molloy

(appointed 25 April 2015; resigned 12 September 2016)

Alan Palmer

(appointed 10 June 2015; Vice Chair from 12 August 2015 until 10 August 2016; Chair from 10 August 2016)

Darren Shoneye

(appointed 25 April 2015; resigned 20 December 2015)

Gavin Smith

(Company Secretary from 1 May 2014)

John Stone

(appointed 23 July 2016)

Kris Verlé

(resigned 25 April 2015)

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Chief Executive Matthew Hodson Ian Howley

(to 19 August 2016) (from 20 August 2016)

Bankers National Westminster Bank plc 332 High Holborn, London WC1V 7PS Independent Examiner Sayer Vincent LLP Chartered Accountants Invicta House, 108-114 Golden Lane, London EC1Y 0TL

GMFA.UK

OUR MISSION:

OUR VALUES:

The mission of the Health Equality and Rights Organisation (HERO) is to improve the health, enhance the wellbeing and champion the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

In addition to our mission, we also have a set of values to which all our projects must conform.

They are:

Our mission is a guiding principle governing all our work.

We believe HERO’s role is to provide the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities with accurate and credible information, and with the skills that enable them to make informed choices and exercise control over their own actions.

•

• • • • • • • •

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VOLUNTEER LEADERSHIP:

All people, regardless of age, race, nationality, religion, disability, gender, sexuality or HIV status, should have equal opportunities in life.

HERO extends this value to our employment practices, volunteers and our work.

All people regardless of their sexuality and gender identity are entitled to equal rights and respect.

We use the World Health Organization’s definition of health in our work, i.e. “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

The health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people should be considered in all aspects of their health and not just their sex life or their sexuality.

Our work will only address identified needs.

Our projects are driven by evidence and effectiveness.

Health promotion for the LGBT communities is fundamentally enhanced when community members collectively have a crucial role in the development and delivery of interventions.

We use the skills, experience, talents and knowledge of volunteers in our work.

Health promotion should empower people rather than reduce their choices.

HERO is a volunteer-led organisation. We use ‘volunteer leadership’ to describe the method by which our volunteers contribute to HERO and participate in developing its interventions.

Members of the Board of Directors are volunteers elected by the volunteers. Volunteers also steer the organisation as members of the groups who develop projects. All HERO volunteers have the right to join any group within HERO.

VOLUNTEERS:

EMPLOYEES:

DIRECTORS:

HERO believes that health promotion for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is fundamentally enhanced when community members take a central role in the development and delivery of projects.

At 31 March 2016, HERO had five full-time members of staff. The staff team consisted of the Chief Executive Officer, two Project Managers, the Community Engagement Officer and the Finance/ Office Manager. Employees are responsible for the day-to-day management of HERO and its projects.

Over the course of the year HERO also engaged the services of a trust and foundations fundraiser on a consultancy basis.

Directors, who are also trustees under charity law, are generally HERO volunteers and are elected to the Board by members of HERO. Our constitution states that there are normally nine places on the Board.

HERO currently has around 150 volunteers. We welcome volunteers from all sections of the community, although the majority of our volunteers are gay men. These talented volunteers bring with them a broad range of life experience and professional skills to HERO. In particular, our gay men’s sexual health work delivered under the GMFA brand, benefits from the volunteers’ inherent understanding of gay men’s health and the participation of men who are representative of the target audience for our work. Furthermore, our volunteer base is made up of HIV-negative and HIV-positive people, long-standing volunteers with experience of sexual health project development and new volunteers with fresh ideas and ways of working.

This range of volunteers brings different perspectives to the development of our HIV prevention campaigns and our resources for gay men living with HIV. Their talent, creativity and life experience is evident in the quality of our work and its success in engaging gay men.

HERO estimates the monetary value of contributions from volunteering at around £200,000. We note though that the most valuable contribution volunteers bring is the depth of knowledge and life experience that such a diverse range of individuals brings to peer education.

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In compliance with the Statement of Recommended Practice we report that the remuneration of HERO’s Chief Executive Officer, including pension contributions, was £56,393.

The term of office for an elected Director is set at four years maximum, and each year at least two members of the Board must stand down. Board members may choose to stand for re-election.

New Directors are provided with an induction process led by the Chair, and all Directors may access training based on the skills needed to fulfil their role as a Director as set out in their role description. We have a policy on training, induction and support of Board members.

The Directors who served during the year and up to the date of this report are as disclosed in the reference and administrative details on page 10.

PARTNERSHIPS:

ABOUT THE HEALTH EQUALITY AND RIGHTS ORGANISATION (HERO):

HERO’s work is developed in partnership with other voluntary, statutory and research organisations.

History

HERO is a partner within the National LGB&T Partnership, a strategic partner for the Department of Health. HERO is also a member of the LGBT Consortium, a national body bringing together LGBT organisations.

HERO (as GMFA) is a member of the Connecting You Partnership, with Positive East, Step Forward and Naz Project London, to provide HIV prevention and sexual health promotion work in Tower Hamlets.

In addition, this year HERO (as GMFA) formed the Rise Partnership, with Naz Project London, London Friend and the Race Equality Foundation to successfully bid for the HIV prevention contract in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.

HERO has strong links with GUM clinics throughout London. This enables us to distribute resources, receive expert advice on sexual health issues and to ensure that the information we disseminate is accurate. Key clinics are closely involved with the GMFA partner notification project.

A very valuable partnership is with the gay commercial scene. HERO would not be as successful as it is without the support and collaboration of pubs, clubs and social groups who raise funds and provide distribution points for our activities, as well as the gay magazines and internet sites that carry our adverts. Notable fundraising partnerships in 2015-16 include with Millivres Prowler Group, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, XXL, Balans Soho and Recon.

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GMFA (originally Gay Men Fighting AIDS) was founded in 1992, by a group of gay men who felt that there was not enough HIV prevention work being specifically targeted at gay men. GMFA quickly earned a reputation for delivering frank, honest and often sexy campaigns for gay men. The organisation is now known as HERO, and delivers work to address health inequalities that affect the broader lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Our sexual health and HIV prevention work, which remains our core work, is still branded as GMFA. From the beginning, we used a model of community mobilisation and peer education. Rather than just producing health promotion aimed at gay men, we wanted gay men to play a central role in the development, design and delivery of interventions.

This resulted in interventions that spoke to gay men from the perspective of gay men, avoiding the paternalistic approach of some other public health interventions.

In 2001 GMFA merged with the Black gay men’s group Big Up and in 2002, broadened its remit to include all health issues which disproportionately affect gay men over other populations. We changed our mission statement and ‘Gay Men Fighting AIDS’ became ‘GMFA – the gay men’s health charity’.

In 2011 our members voted to expand the remit of the charity to cover health issues for lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. GMFA changed its name to the Health Equality and Rights Organisation (HERO) and we amended our objects to cover health issues for lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.

Many things about HERO have changed, but recruiting and retaining members of our target groups and keeping them at the heart of our organisation and our work has not. Each year between 100 and 200 people actively volunteer for us, and our methods of developing projects and our policies are built around being a truly volunteer-led organisation.

Structure, governance and management HERO is a charitable company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 31 March 1992 and registered as a charity on 2 August 1999.

ABOUT THE HEALTH EQUALITY AND RIGHTS ORGANISATION (HERO): Governing document

Objects and activities

Risk statement

The company was established under a Memorandum of Association which established the objects and powers of the charitable company, and is governed under its Articles of Association. The Memorandum of Association and the Articles of Association were updated in December 2002 to reflect a change in the objects of the charity, a new name and to allow members of the Board to be co-opted.

The objects of the charity as set out in the Memorandum and Articles of Association are:

Our major risks have been reviewed by HERO’s Board and its subgroup, the Risk Subcommittee.

The Risk Subcommittee maintains and monitors risks and reports to the Board. A risk register is used with a defined risk scoring approach. The risks are regularly revised to ensure they accurately reflect the current situation.

The latest change was made in June 2011 when members voted to adopt a new name, the Health Equality and Rights Organisation (HERO), and to expand our remit to allow us to address the health needs of a wider population, specifically lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

a) To protect and preserve public health in particular amongst the gay male, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population of the United Kingdom. b) To advance public education in the subjects affecting the health of the gay male, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population including the causes, symptoms, treatment and prevention of illness, in particular through the promotion of research and the dissemination of the useful results of research.

Public benefit

In July 2016, the Articles of Association were amended to:

•

•

Allow a Director to be removed if the Board passes a vote of no confidence in them.

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Revise the wording outlining circumstances under which a Director can be removed if they are unable to carry out their role as a result of either physical or mental health issues, to reflect recent changes to legislation and improved awareness of mental health conditions.

Allow a Director to attend a meeting by video or telephone conference.

We have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing our aims and objectives and in planning our future activities. In particular, the Directors consider how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives they have set.

HERO is achieving public benefit through our work providing health information to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities and promoting the health choices that are available to them. This year we have achieved this by improving the effectiveness of our interventions, which include a website, press and online campaigning work and printing of resources. Whilst these services are chiefly aimed at gay men they can also be accessed by any member of the public.

Our main risk is that we will not find sufficient new sources of funding to allow us to continue operating, although our confirmed income and current reserves are now at a level to allow us to deliver our planned work beyond 2016-17. We are engaged in a strategy of seeking new funding and a diversity of funding by increasing our support from trusts and foundations, building on our community fundraising and our ability to generate revenue from our activities.

HERO’s Board of Directors also receives an annual health and safety risk assessment. The planning document for all new interventions now includes a risk assessment.

Remuneration policy for key management personnel HERO has a staff pay policy, which is reviewed regularly by the Board. It includes pay scales with incremental points for each post within the organisation, and specifies that inflationary increases will be at the same rate as the annual NHS Agenda for Change increase, published by NHS Employers at: http://www.nhsemployers.org/yourworkforce/pay-and-reward/pay/pay-and-conditionscirculars/agenda-for-change-pay-and-conditionscirculars.

FINANCIAL REVIEW: In comparison with 2014-15, HERO’s income increased and expenditure was reduced during 2015-16. The deficit for the year was £98,376, compared with a deficit of £238,560 in 2014-15.

Further reduction of expenditure for 2016-17 will be implemented by staff restructuring and relocation of the offices, while working to secure additional income.

Reserves policy HERO has a reserves policy which was revised and updated in October 2014. The purpose of the reserves policy is to:

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Statement of responsibilities of the Directors The Directors are responsible for preparing the report of the Directors and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the Directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Directors are required to:

Enable the Directors to plan spending in an informed manner.

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Ensure that HERO’s reserves are used appropriately to help meet the charity’s objects.

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Ensure that HERO has sufficient reserves to be a stable charity.

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At 31 March 2016, HERO had unrestricted reserves of £276,122. £260,000 of this has been designated to a Capacity Building fund in order to enable HERO to hold sufficient cashflow for approximately nine months of operating costs while still delivering our core services for the London gay community. This level of designated funds is therefore held to cover the cost of our work until adequate ongoing funding is realised.

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The Directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of the financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Approved by the Directors on 15 November 2016 and signed on their behalf by Alan Palmer – Chair.

Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently; Observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP; Make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent; State whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in operation.

The Directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that 15

the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Photography: John Stone (Pride pages 1, 5, 8, 12) Joel Ryder, http://joel-ryder.com (Gay Sports Day pages 2, 11) Design: no.star, nostarpro.tumblr.com We also want to thank our wonderful GMFA volunteers who march with us, support us at fundraising events and model for FS, our campaigns and our website.