Story
"Against all the odds, historically, women have written and published. But it has always been a hard struggle. We are now able to build upon the hard work of our foremothers. The Rebecca Swift Foundation has been an active source of support and encouragement for women writers, with a strong ethos and a diversity of practice. Please help them continue and extend this support." - Penelope Shuttle
Who We Are
The Rebecca Swift Foundation is the only UK charity whose entire remit is focussed on how best to support and champion women poets. Our mission is to advance the craft, creativity, and wellbeing of women poets.
We run the biennial, free-to-enter Women Poets’ Prize with previous winners featured in national broadsheets and on major prize lists: winners include Nina Mingya Powles, Anita Pati, Claire Collison, Jennifer Lee Tsai, and Natalie Linh Bolderston. Prize winners receive cash stipends and 12 months of support including digital skills training, confidence coaching, mentoring, and workshops. In 2022 we launched a low-cost UK-wide membership, the Women Poets’ Network. We also curated the first fully hybrid Women Poets’ Festival in partnership with the National Centre for Writing. An ethos of holistic creativity is at the heart of everything we do and how we build our programmes.
Why our work is important
There is a critical need for free and low-cost service provisions for women poets of all ages, at all career stages, and from all communities, that recognises the importance of intersectionality, regional diversity, and the unique challenges faced by women poets. We want to find solutions to these challenges by:
Balancing creativity with wellbeing, caring responsibilities, and financial pressures;
Finding solutions for buddy systems, peer feedback and mentoring that’s accessible to all;
Building skills to create opportunities for commissions, residencies, workshops and teaching.
Why we need your help
The current environment for small charities like us is extremely challenging. In order to help us keep building a loving home for women poets, we need to explore longer term funding solutions. Our priority is keeping our work going and our doors open, so that we can continue to work with and support women poets who need us.
“The threefold focus of the Rebecca Swift Foundation on writing, being and doing is central. The support offered is less about the race towards awards and prizes, and more about building the space and conditions for creativity to happen at any point along women poets’ journeys.” - Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Our Impact
Since we started activities in 2018, we have supported over 3,000 women poets.
The Women Poets’ Directory has over 300 members across all regions of the United Kingdom, with a further 807 Women Poets’ Network members in our Facebook group. Our youngest members are in their 20s and our oldest in their 70s.
Women Poets’ Prize winners have been featured in the Guardian and Telegraph, among many other media outlets, exposing the work of UK women poets to millions of readers.
We hosted the first Women Poets’ Festival in Norwich with 226 women poets in attendance in person and online. Attendees said it set a ‘gold standard’ for accessibility.
Of our 906 2022 Prize applicants, 43% identified as working class, 26% as disabled, 28% as neurodivergent, and 22% as global majority. 91% would apply again and two thirds said that the Prize being women-centred was in their top three reasons to apply.
We have created opportunities for women poets through partnerships with a range of organisations including Faber, the Poetry School, Verve, Lyra, Bath Spa University, The Literary Consultancy, StanZa, the National Centre for Writing, and Push the Boat Out Festival.
739 women poets attended our 2022-23 ‘by poets for poets’ member events to learn and share skills, build confidence, and gain a sense of community.
What We Will Do With Your Money
If we hit our target – we will be able to spend the next 6 months exploring options that will increase our financial stability and secure the future of the charity, so that we can support even more women poets.
If we exceed our target – we will put any additional funds directly towards resourcing our activities and opportunities for women poets, and will seek support from charity sector specialists Fair Collective to boost our organisational sustainability.
Every Donation Counts
Every donation, no matter the size, makes a meaningful impact on the lives of women poets. Join the Rebecca Swift Foundation as a supporter and be a catalyst for positive change.