Call to the Community: An Urgent Message from Split This Rock
Image Description: Black rectangle with Split This Rock's red logo at the top, and a red button that reads "17 YEARS OF POETRY FOR SOCIAL CHANGE" at the bottom. In between are five photos with poets of all ages writing, reading, and performing their work.
Updates
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August 15, 2025: $3,000 Challenge Grant Unlocked!
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August 22, 2025: $25,000 Challenge Grant From Poetry Foundation!
August 8, 2025 Announcement
Dear community and supporters,
We write to you today because we have arrived at an unprecedented moment for Split This Rock. It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that our organization must suspend its work for the time being. We are also hopeful that, with community support, this pause in our work can be temporary. This is a rallying call to ask what support you can offer as we contend with extraordinary funding challenges and aim to bridge a $68,750 funding gap.
For seventeen years, Split This Rock has been the only national organization with a mission to integrate poetry and social justice. The organization was born out of a need to expand the poetry field’s horizons of inclusion and assert the transformative power of language to bear witness to injustice and provoke social change. For 10 years, we have produced and hosted the only online, searchable database of social justice poetry, The Quarry. We support, uplift, and celebrate the imaginations, voices, and power of those who have been left out of the poetry field and its possibilities.
The nature of our work has always carried risk and required the organization to evolve and adapt. We have faced significant risk and survived through years of struggle, including funding losses and backlash against our work. In June 2020, in response to our statement in solidarity with the Black liberation struggle, a major donor withdrew promised funding totalling nearly 20% of our annual budget. In October 2023, half of our board of directors, including both co-chairs, publicly resigned, and we lost a significant portion of donors from our base in response to our statement in support of a Free Palestine. Now, this year’s systematized escalation of political attacks on the communities we serve and funding for the art we amplify has pushed our organization to a breaking point.
In the coming weeks, we must wind down all programs and publications and adapt our work in several ways:
- Close out work with our contracted Teaching Artists and First Readers;
- Conclude our Youth Activist Poetry Anthology Project on August 14th, after which all youth programming will be paused;
- Pause the Poem of the Week Series and disburse remaining payments to poets;
- Explore ways to preserve The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database as a free resource available on our website; and
- Reduce staff hours and salaries in August knowing that, without new funds, we will no longer be able to retain our 3-member staff team beyond October.
While our minds are reeling and our hearts are tender from the difficult decisions we have had to make, we aren’t giving up. We are giving it our all to keep this organization alive because, as poets, our work is to respond to the call for truth telling and brave action. We are now turning toward our most important hope: you, our beloved community.
To ensure Split This Rock’s future, we must raise $68,750 as soon as possible. This is a rallying call to our community to ask what outpouring you can offer to help us get through this year’s financial drought.
If you are able to donate, that is the most direct way you can help. The Cynipid Fund has very generously offered to match donations up to $3,000—with your help, we can unlock this match and be $6,000 closer to our goal. We welcome individual donations, community fundraisers on our behalf, and additional offers of matching gifts. You can donate online through Split This Rock’s online giving portal or by mail. If you donate by mail, please send your donation to Split This Rock’s office: 1301 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20036.
We are also in need of other forms of support, such as pro-bono consulting services, donated poetry workshops, and complimentary spaces for fundraising events. If you are able to volunteer your services, expertise, or time in the coming weeks and months, please fill out this brief form to learn more about the various forms of support we are seeking and let us know what you can offer.
We plan to gather community with in-person events in Washington, DC, as well as virtual events, to connect to the heart of Split This Rock’s work and raise funds to keep it going. Stay tuned for invitations to these gatherings. We hope to share space with as many of you as possible.
With your help to raise the $68,750 we need, this pause in our programming can be temporary and we can reemerge to continue our work with a new sustainability model. We deeply hope to continue expanding the material pathways to earn sustainable livelihoods as poets, the poetic record of our social and political conditions, and our collective imagination of a liberated future.
Yours in poetry and resistance,
Split This Rock Staff & Board of Directors
Chelsea Iorlano, Gowri Koneswaran, Alexandria Petrassi, Danielle Badra, Alexa Patrick, Tatiana Figueroa Ramírez
Image Description: Six collaged photos of Split This Rock’s Board of Directors and Staff. From left to right in the top row: Tatiana Figueroa Ramírez, Alexa Patrick, and Danielle Badra. From left to right in the bottom row: Chelsea Iorlano, Alexandria Petrassi, and Gowri Koneswaran.
SPLIT THIS ROCK NAMED ONE OF DC'S BEST SMALL CHARITIES
Give Today & Honor a Poet's Legacy!
In celebration of Split This Rock’s first decade and to inspire support for the years to come, we have named Giving Circles in honor of poets who have inspired, supported, and helped to shape Split This Rock’s work. When you give, you build on their legacy. You can now give to honor following poets:
- Langston Hughes Circle ($10,000): Split This Rock’s name is drawn from the Hughes’ poem “Big Buddy”: Don’t you hear this hammer ring? / I’m gonna split this rock / And split it wide! / When I split this rock, / Stand by my side. Permission granted by the Langston Hughes estate.
- June Jordan Circle ($5,000+): On the 10th anniversary of Jordan's passing, Split This Rock dedicated the 2012 Festival in her memory. Her poetry, prose, and teaching continue to inspire and animate Split This Rock’s work.
- Adrienne Rich Circle ($1,000+): Moved by the vision for Split This Rock, Adrienne sent Split This Rock’s founders a powerful letter of endorsement and a check for $1,000 to support the first festival.
- Lucille Clifton Circle ($500+): One of the first poets to say “yes” to featuring at the 2008 festival, Ms. Lucille, as she's fondly known, sadly was unable to attend due to illness. Split This Rock paid tribute to her at the 2010 festival, a month after her death. In her memory, her family has made the inaugural gift to the Lucille Clifton Circle.
- Francisco X. Alarcón Circle ($250+): A faithful attendee at Split This Rock Poetry Festivals, Francisco spearheaded Poets Responding to SB 1070, often partnering with Split This Rock, and worked tirelessly for immigration justice.
- Zahara Heckscher Circle ($100+): An active member of Split This Rock’s network, Zahara invented the Poetry Game, presenting it at festivals and designating a portion of proceeds to supporting Split This Rock.
- Maxwell Corydon Wheat Jr. Circle ($1-99): After being fired as Poet Laureate of Nassau County, NY for writing poems against the Iraq War, Max was declared Poet Laureate by the community’s poets. An attendee and panelist at Split This Rock’s first festival, Max mailed $5 checks to Split This Rock every month until his death in 2016.