Transgender youth support charity Mermaids has raised £17,000 through an urgent fundraiser among supporters, which has been launched as a Charity Commission investigation into its organisation is harming its ability to raise funds from corporate partners.

Through the appeal the charity is aiming to raise at least £20,000 to help it meet demand for support from trans young people and their families.

It says funding for this support has been harmed by the Commission’s probe, which has run on for more than 18 months and “is significantly impacting our services, staff and volunteer wellbeing, our reputation, and our finances”, said the charity.

“Securing funding is increasingly difficult, and corporate partners are hesitant to work with us due to potential backlash,” it added.

“We have been incredibly patient, cooperating fully, frankly, and openly with the Commission at all times.

“But we simply can’t afford to wait any longer for the Commission to publish their findings, for funders to unpause, and for things to get better in a few weeks, months, or years. Not when trans young people are suffering right now.”

The Charity Commission’s statutory inquiry into Mermaids’ governance and management was launched in 2022. This followed a compliance case looking into allegations of safeguarding failures at the charity.

In April the regulator was forced to explain how it reposted a derogatory comment on X that claimed the charity of being “responsible for so much harm”.

The Commission said the report was made in error while social media posts mentioning the regulator were being monitored.

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