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.