Love Her Wild CIC

Hi! I'm Bex Band, founder of Love Her Wild.

The best thing that ever happened to me was going on an adventure! It improved my physical and mental wellbeing. It boosted my confidence and wellbeing. It gave me some of the greatest friends and instilled a passion for protecting the environment.

It wasn’t until my mid-20s that I started going on adventures and it wasn’t easy at first. I found the outdoors to be male-dominant, competitive and judgemental, even sometimes experiencing overt sexism. I felt I didn’t belong. So I set up Love Her Wild, to create a different kind of space in the outdoors. One that was kind, supportive and non-judgmental. A space that didn’t care if you reached your goal or not, only that you had a good time along the way.

LOVE HER WILD

In February 2017 I launched Love Her Wild. What started out as a small Facebook group has grown into a thriving non-profit (CIC) with over 25,000 collective members. We are the UK's largest women's adventure community.

To make adventures more accessible to women, who are massively under-represented in the outdoors, we are focusing on providing the following:

1. A supportive online space for women to ask questions and gain inspiration

2. Free and low-cost adventures across the UK for women
3. Funding and gear for promising women to gain recognised outdoor qualifications as well as adventure grants for those least represented in the outdoors (including minority ethnic women, differently-abled and low-income households)




GROWING A COMMUNITY

We’ve taken over thousands of women on outdoor adventures mostly in the UK but also on some bigger overseas expeditions. They range from wild swimming weekends, navigation courses and day hikes to kayaking the width of the country against plastic pollution.

We’ve raised over £10k for charity to date.

Provided funding and gear to over 60 women

Removed over 10,000 pieces of plastic pollution

Set up 8 mentoring partnerships. Find out more about our community here.

In 2022 we will attmpt our biggest adventure yet - the Women's End2End relay. Providing an affordable and exciting adventure for hundreds of women, all while raising money for a conservation charity.

Perhaps the hardest thing to measure though is the spirit of our community. Scrolling through our hub, the national Facebook group, you'll find a wealth of kindness, inspiration and friendship.






SUPPORTING OUR MISSION

Our incredible Patreon supporters are providing the only regular income for our non-profit community.

Patreon is a form of membership - that costs the same as a coffee a month. You can choose to opt-in (or out) at any time and you decide how much to pledge. There are great benefits to be had as well. From access to an exclusive newsletter, discounts from our supporting brands, a reduced ticket price at Wild Weekends and loads of exciting giveaways.

WHAT WILL THE MONEY BE SPENT ON?

100% of your donation goes to support our running costs and funding initiatives for the women who are least represented in the outdoors. That includes:

• Hosting and domain for the Love Her Wild website
• MailChimp to keep everyone up-to-date via our newsletters
• Insurance so we can run our events and expeditions safely
• Web development to provide a hub of advice, interviews and adventures you can access
• Grants for women who are in financial hardship, suffering from a mental illness of are an ethnic minority, to join our adventures for free
• Training for our Local Wilder volunteers so they can better serve their communities with local free and low-cost adventures
• Additional help for community projects from leaders to admin

I pride myself on being as honest and transparent as possible. If you have any questions at all please don't hesitate to get in touch: [email protected]

Thank you for reading and I really hope I will be welcoming you to our Patreon community :)

Bex Band x