Who are we?
We are three mental health advocates: Hattie Gladwell, James Conlon and Anneli Roberts, starting an online mental health publication for people with mental illness - and those interested in mental illness - BY people with mental illness. We will share mental health pieces from experienced and new writers, offering opinion pieces, personal essays, mental health news, studies, listicles and more.
We want to showcase people's talent, and remind mental health writers that their work is worthy of being paid for.
What We Need & What You Get
We are looking to raise £5,000 so that we can create a big enough budget to promote our website, PAY our writers (something that a lot of people don't do when it comes to mental health writing) and make sure we can bring you the best content. To be transparent, we are taking a lot of time to launch and edit and make sure the website is the best it can be for you all, and so we need to make some money from it ourselves. We are also looking at marketing costs, sponsorships - but really we just want to be able to share the stories of as many mental health writers as possible, and make sure they are compensated for their time, effort and talent.
If you donate, you will get exclusive access to a mental health newsletter written by Anneli, James and Hattie, and you will also get an early look at the launch of the website, plus weekly updates on writers we've got onboard and pieces to look forward to.
You will also get to read three exclusive pieces over the next month, before they are launched online.
If we don't meet the funding goal, we will use what we have raised to pay as many writers as possible, and to get the website out there with promotion.
The Impact
We think this is an important project for many. There are little publications out there - with the exception of a few - focusing mainly on mental health and everything that incorporates it - including physical health, dating, sex, friendships, worklife and more. And our niche? We are only commissioning those with experience of mental illness - whether that be suffering themselves, or experience of someone else suffering.
There are so many mental health writers out there who don't get the opportunity to share their work - or don't get paid for it - and we want to change that. We want to show writers that their work is amazing, and most of all, appreciated, and worthy of fair pay.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you are unable to donate, don't worry! We thank you for your time reading this. If you would like to help us out though, please do share our campaign and encourage other people to donate. We will love you for it!