The Rumpus has established our inaugural CAPACITY-BUILDING BOARD. The board members, who will collaborate with the Publisher and Rumpus team to help us achieve fiscal sustainability.
About us:
Founded in 2009 and independent from the start, The Rumpus began as a scrappy but influential online magazine that published a mix of arts, culture, and literary writing; comics; literary gossip; event calendars; and anything/everything its early editors were interested in. Several writers—including Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Samantha Irby, and Isaac Fitzgerald—helped establish the magazine as a place to find great risk-taking writing.
Fifteen years and two publishers later, we are, against the odds, still around, still independent, and still surviving off our hardworking volunteers. More recently, under the direction of our previous publisher, Marisa Siegel (2017–2021) and current publisher, Alyson Sinclair (2022–present), The Rumpus has refined its focus: to be a literary magazine that champions emerging writers and underrepresented voices across all genres (fiction, essays, poetry, comics, and hybrid forms), as well as independent presses. The site now includes a Rumpus Original Poetry section as well as spaces specific to historically marginalized writers and columns such as Funny Women (humor writing by non-men), ENOUGH (a dedicated space for creative work by women, trans, and nonbinary people that engages with sexual assault and domestic violence), Voices on Addiction (a wide ranging series of personal narratives of addiction), and We Are More (an inclusive series for Southwest Asian, North African, and diaspora writers). We are committed to supporting the literary community at large and also regularly publish interviews with authors and book reviews of both poetry and prose titles.
In the fall of 2022, The Rumpus applied for and received fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas. While we are not currently pursuing standalone nonprofit status due to high costs versus a likely small potential benefit, fiscal sponsorship allows us access to nearly all the things 501c3 status allows organizations to do. Most importantly, fiscal sponsorship allows donors to make tax-deductible donations to support our work for the first time and makes us eligible to apply for some grants! We applied for and received a Capacity-Building Grant from CLMP in 2023, which covered roughly half the cost of our much-needed website redesign. We were also a finalist for a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize in 2023 and the AWP Small Press Publisher Award in 2024.
We remain an outlier as a widely-read lit magazine that is not connected to any academic institution or wealthy benefactor, or does not exist as part of a larger publishing company. This indie spirit allows us to be a platform for work that moves our editors—not what necessarily responds to markets or trends. This also means that we rely primarily on reader-support to keep The Rumpus afloat. The Rumpus needs a capacity-building board to ensure this work can continue and become sustainable for many years to come!
Please consider joining The Rumpus as a capacity-building board member. Board member responsibilities include:
- Advocating for The Rumpus by boosting awareness for the work we publish, sharing the events we host, and supporting calls to action during our annual fundraisers and membership drives
- Acting as a liaison between Rumpus leadership and your personal and professional contacts to help us secure new partnerships, sponsorships, or appropriate advertising opportunities
- Sharing your expertise in areas of fundraising/development, promotion, event planning, and/or other aspects of the work that goes into creating a sustainable indie publication
- Committing to attending 1–2 hour virtual meetings each quarter with the publisher and editor-in-chief in attendance (4 times/year). Join at least one subcommittee with specific TBD focuses on areas such as development, event planning, promotion, etc
- Committing to some combination of raising or donating to our annual summer fundraising drive or by the end of the fiscal year (December 31). *If you are not able to meet the minimum, good faith efforts to reach individual goals will be acceptable.
- Committing to an initial 18-month term on The Rumpus’s capacity-building board. Subsequent board terms will be 12-month commitments with the option to sit on the Board for up to five years before moving to Capacity-Building Board Member Emeritus status
Benefits of capacity-building board membership include:
- Gratitude of The Rumpus team and all our past and future contributors for keeping one of the few remaining truly independent literary magazines alive
- Behind-the-scenes knowledge and experience with the many moving parts and volunteer work that keeps magazines like ours going—we’ll share both our struggles and our successes
- The opportunity to actively connect with our team and your fellow board members as we work together to build a better Rumpus
- Invites to all of our in-person and virtual events
- Recognition on therumpus.net and in our end-of-year newsletter
- Complimentary subscription to our Letters in the Mail from Authors program for the duration of your time on the board
We are not currently seeking new Board applicants, but will add the call here when we are. If you have questions in the meantime, feel free to reach out to:
Alyson Sinclair, publisher & executive director at hello@therumpus.net.
The Rumpus does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, marital status, parental status, military service, or disability. We strongly encourage BIPOC and LGBTQ+ candidates to apply.
Like to help us reach our fundraising goal?