A life-line for LGBTQIA+ people of faith - Read OTN’s 2025 Annual Report
Read and download:
the full 2025 Annual Report (PDF, 8 pages)
the Executive Summary (PDF, 2 pages)
OUR NEWLY PUBLISHED 2025 Annual Report tells the story of how OTN continues to offer belonging, hope, and safer sacred spaces for LGBTQIA+ people seeking a spiritual home.
Across England and Wales, Open Table communities offer genuinely inclusive, affirming welcome for LGBTQIA+ people, their families and friends to ‘come as you are’, as OTN’s slogan says.
In 2025, our network continued to grow in resilience, reach and impact. By the end of the year:
38 active communities were meeting across the UK
Four new communities launched
24 churches explored hosting an Open Table community
839 new people connected with Open Table communities in person - a 9% increase on 2024
Around 740 people engaged with Open Table communities each month - also up 9% on 2024.
Behind all this was the dedication of nearly 400 volunteers who together gave an estimated 4,000 hours every month to create safer, welcoming spaces for LGBTQIA+ people of faith.
One community member described the impact of joining an Open Table community:
‘I slowly found my way back to a place of belonging within a church, where I could be all of me. Where I could breathe again without fear of discovery, or stigma.’
At a time when many LGBTQIA+ people still experience rejection, exclusion or isolation within faith settings, Open Table continues to offer community, belonging and hope. Our 2025 Annual Report shares stories, research, and statistics demonstrating the difference these communities make.
Google Maps image of England and Wales with an Open Table logo marking the locations of our communities and arrows between the communities furthest to the west and east, north and south, roughly 300 miles in each direction representing the expansion of the network in 2025.
Research & impact
In 2025, OTN re-commissioned independent research into the experiences of Open Table community members and leaders, to update our research from 2021. The initial findings underline just how important these safer sacred spaces remain for our community members:
89% said joining Open Table had improved their wellbeing
84% said they felt less isolated since joining Open Table
73% said they felt safer within an Open Table community
For almost one in five (17%), Open Table is the only faith-based LGBTQIA+ inclusive space they access in an average month.
The research also highlighted growing challenges:
71% of members identify being visibly LGBTQIA+ as a barrier to belonging in mainstream church communities - up sharply from 56% in 2021.
As one member shared:
‘After worrying about walking into places of worship many times… for the first time I felt safe and at home in my faith.’
The full research report will be published in 2026.
More than just a church service
Alongside local communities, OTN supports churches, leaders and volunteers through training, mentoring, peer support, events, safeguarding guidance and online resources. During 2025, we also consulted local leaders on a new Network Agreement designed to strengthen accountability, safeguarding and shared values across the growing network, which will be introduced in 2026.
Our partnerships also continued to deepen. In 2025 OTN collaborated with organisations including Inclusive Church and the Greenbelt Festival, the Methodist Church, Quest and St Beuno’s Spirituality Centre, to promote LGBTQIA+ inclusion and create spaces for connection, reflection and hope.
Growing online and beyond
OTN’s digital reach continued to expand in 2025, helping more people discover affirming faith communities online.
Average monthly website visits increased by 21%
Social media engagement rose by 14%
OTN completed its first full year on Bluesky after leaving Twitter in 2024
Our This Is My Story podcast continued sharing reflections, prayer and LGBTQIA+ Christian stories.
We also responded to enquiries from 18 people across North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe, while publishing blogs amplifying LGBTQIA+ voices from Brazil and Uganda.
Financial resilience and the future
While 2025 brought reduced staffing capacity as OTN’s Director trained part-time for ordained ministry, the charity remained financially stable and resilient.
Fundraising income increased by 7%, including a highly successful Big Give Christmas Challenge which reached its target early with 25% more donors than the previous year. By the end of 2025, unrestricted reserves stood at £18,976 - around five months of operating costs and within the charity’s target reserve policy.
Looking ahead to 2026, OTN hopes to secure funding for a second part-time member of staff to strengthen regional support for communities and volunteers across the network.
Above all, this report celebrates people: the LGBTQIA+ people finding belonging and healing through Open Table communities, and the volunteers, leaders, churches, donors and supporters who make this ministry possible.
As one member and donor reflected:
‘OTN has been a blessing to me, so I hope with my widow’s mite I can be a blessing to others as well.’
Read the full 2025 Annual Report and or the Executive Summary to discover more stories, reflections and evidence of the impact Open Table communities are having across England and Wales.
As a registered charity, OTN also files its annual report and independently examined accounts with the Charity Commission. View OTN’s Charity Commission profile here.
Your support makes a real difference:
If you would like to support OTN’s work, you can:
Share this report with others
Explore starting a community in your area
Donate to support our work
Volunteer to help create safer spaces for LGBTQIA+ people of faith.
