Love Her Wild

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

My biggest passion in life is encouraging as many women as I can to find time for more adventures.

Going on an adventure completely changed me and my life. Being in nature taking on challenges without pressure helped build back confidence and self-worth that had been lost for many years. On expeditions, I forged friendships I had never experienced before. And ultimately, it helped me realise that I was capable of doing SO much more. It led me to a life on my terms where I am reaching my potential and feeling like I'm making a real difference in the world.

It's not always easy being a woman which is why I think it's so important we all get to experience the benefits of outdoors and adventure. But I noticed that there were so few women in the outdoor groups I was joining, so few female instructors and coverage of women in outdoor magazines (and don't get me started on the imbalance and representations with outdoor clothing ranges!).

I personally found the adventure scene very daunting. I hated the compeition and the feeling I had that I wasn't good enough or fit enough to participate. It almost put me off adventure entirely. So I decided to do something about it....

LOVE HER WILD

Late 2016 I launched my blog, The Ordinary Adventure. I wanted to create a space where I could share adventures in a more honest and transparent light. My blog is an open book - revealing my failures and giving practical advice on everything from managing a period on an adventure to exactly how much my adventures cost and how I fund them.

Then in February 2017 I had the idea to open a Facebook group to start a women's adventure community where all competition and judgment were removed.....and so Love Her Wild was born!



GROWING A COMMUNITY

3 years on and running my blog and the 9,000+ storng Love Her Wild community has become a full-time job. And I feel very proud of everything the community has achieved in this time....

- A safe and supportive Facebook group for women to share and be inspired

- Annual free expeditions brining together teams of women to take on a challenge (we've run the Everest Adventure, The Woods Expedition and First Mountain)

- Pairing experienced adventurers with those just starting out in our Mentoring Program

- Launching the Deserving Women's Scheme providing free or heavily subsidised places on adventures for women in need. Over 45 women have now benefited!

- Contributing to conservation efforts around the world. All our adventures are eco-conscious and we pride ourselves on inspiring and educating as many women in the community to change their habits to help protect nature

- Organising local groups with free meetups including the annual #WildWalk to try and get as many women out hiking for a day

- Running the Wild Weekend's; an affordable friendly weekend away to help others meet like-minded women, have time outdoors and to inspire future adventures

- And in 2020 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








DO YOU FIND VALUE IN WHAT I'M DOING?

Running my blog and the Love Her Wild community is hard work (don't get me wrong, I love it, but it's hard work). It's taken a lot of time, many sacrifices and also my own savings to build everything to what it is today.

As Love Her Wild grows, so does the money needed to keep it going. I'm determined to keep the community and all my content free and available to all which is why I launched this Patreon page!

You can become a Patreon for as little as the cost of a coffee a month. You can cancel at any time AND there are great benefits for you to access. The more you give, the more benefits you get (see tier options above).



WHAT WILL THE MONEY BE SPENT ON?

Quite rightly you want to know where your money will be going. Money coming in from Patreon will go towards covering the following costs:

• 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 because there is always something that isn't working properly!!!
• Deserving Women Scheme to cover the costs involved so that our adventures and expeditions can be brought to a wider range of women in need
• Additional help for community projects from leaders to admin, the more help I get the more community work I can do

BIG GOAL: The big goal is to get enough Patreon supports to be able to employ someone to help on a part-time basis. This will really enable us to take Love Her Wild to the next level, expanding our reach and providing more free opportunities and funding than ever before!

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