Fundraising
Why do we raise money?
One of the stated aims of LOFT is to raise money to be spent in such a way to promote our objectives and to benefit the local community and the supporters of Leyton Orient. In the past we’ve run a Christmas Draw, quiz night, raffles and sold LOFT t-shirts (the latter still available).
What have we spent money on?
Any funds we’ve raised have been used to benefit football community projects, both in the Leyton Orient community and beyond. Since 2018 we’ve supported the Leyton Orient womens’ team and Walking Football Team with direct donations, as well as making donations to other trusts/supporter organisations facing club crises. We also made a direct donation to Leyton Orient FC in 2018 to help cover the costs of emergency repairs to the East Stand to bring it back into full use.
In 2019, thanks to the generosity of our members, we made a substantial donation to the Justin Edinburgh 3 Foundation, to honour the legacy of the club’s late head coach.
We’ve also run several rounds of kit grants to local grassroots football clubs, benefiting a number of clubs.
What do we spend money on in 2025?
Earlier this season, we ran the latest round of kit grants to local grassroots football clubs, awarding £300 to each of several clubs that applied. We plan to do this at least once every year, funds allowing.
We also currently proudly sponsor Dan Happe from the men’s team and Grace Alexander from the women’s team at Leyton Orient FC.
How can I help raise funds?
The main way to help is to join LOFT!
We have an Easyfundraising affiliates page, where you can sign up to support us and use the affiliate links when shopping at over 8,000 brands such as Amazon, John Lewis and many more. See the Easyfundraising website for more details on how this works.
We also still have some United Colours of Orient II t-shirts left over from 2005! We commissioned these to celebrate the fifth Kick It Out week of action, with a design celebrating the diverse origins of some of that season’s squad.
From the original print run of 100 XL size t-shirts, a number of these t-shirts remain available for just £7.99 each plus £2 p&p to anywhere in the UK. Professionally silkscreen-printed on high quality white t-shirts, they are in mint-condition and in their original wrappers, having been stored safely in a dark cupboard for the last 20 years! Only XL size is available, no print runs of any size will be made again, so these are genuinely a Limited Edition. Contact us if you’d like to buy one or more of these.
Regeneration Fund
In 2017, when the club was being run down to near-destruction by its then owner, we set up the Leyton Orient Regeneration Fund to raise money to be used in one of several possible crisis scenarios. The club was eventually saved by a consortium led by lifelong fan Nigel Travis, so the fund was not required for its original stated purposes.
The final balance of the fund after a refund process agreed by members ended was £117,567. The fund remains as an emergency fund, solely for the crisis scenarios as set out in the original fund mandate. The LOFT board will bring a motion back to every AGM, so that members will have a regular chance to consider if the fund should be kept for these sole purposes or whether it should be re-purposed. If members ever vote to re-purpose it, we will then consider options on what to use the fund for, before presenting these to members to approve.