About Us

History

The Pride in Plymouth Website was launched in 2009 at a time when there was static websites for the LGBTQ+ communities  with out of date content and links. At the same time the Pink Paper that was distributed here in Plymouth announced that they were to stop printing the paper. So we needed a platform that shared local news, promoted events on and off the scene and raised awareness of the national and international issues LGBT+ people faced. We also wanted to promote Plymouth as a viable place for members of  LGBTQ+ communities to live, visit, study and work.

It wasn’t long after the launch of the website a small committee was formed and we constituted as an unincorporated association. In 2011 Pride in Plymouth became a key partner in the Pride in Our Past Project and subsequent community exhibition held in the city museum in 2012.  From that project we were able to grow our volunteer base and strengthen our committee enabling us to organise Plymouth’s first proper outdoor pride held in Devonport Park in 2012. One of the key objectives of the committee was to research and chose a suitable legal structure that would offer protection of our assets whilst supporting sustainable growth.

We attended a series of workshops exploring the possibilities looking at various charitable structures, limited company and community interest companies. After weighing up the pros and cons of each we decided that a Community Interest Company (Limited by Guarantee) was the most appropriate structure. One of the key aspects of this structure is the Community Asset Lock where our assets including the LGBT  history exhibition and educational material are protected.

2014 saw Plymouth awarded Social Enterprise City status after rapid growth of social enterprise companies, VSO’s and the development of the Social Enterprise Network which Pride in Plymouth is a member.

On 19th November 2014 Pride in Plymouth was officially incorporated as a Community Interest Company (CIC).

This structure will enable us to apply for various funding and grants that is not available to unincorporated associations, we will have more formal accounting procedures and will enable us to build our service offering to the community.

The CIC structure also provides security for our assets including the mobile archive display and educational resource accumulated by the Plymouth LGBT community archive.