Support Us
First Story is a charity and we rely enormously on your support to help fund our work. There are a number of ways to donate, and your generosity will enable us to expand and improve our programme in challenging state schools across the country.
It was truly a pleasure to be involved in this wonderful project, which I think changes lives.
Kate Harris, Oxford University Press
Support Us
Supporting an aspect of our programme is one of the most exciting ways to be involved with First Story. Whether you’re an individual or a company, there are several different opportunities.
Make a donation
First Story is bringing much-needed opportunities to young writers across the country and we rely on your generosity to continue our work. You can make a donation through our Virgin Money Giving page. You can also make a donation by cheque.
Become a regular supporter
Supporting First Story on a regular basis by making a standing donation provides crucial long term support for the First Story programme. A donation of just £5 a month will help us run a First Story literary event, while £25 will pay for eight stories to be written by our students, or for one of our students to attend eight creative writing sessions in their school. Please contact info@firststory.org.uk for a donation form.
Buy the anthologies
Interested in reading our students’ work? In the last three years, some 750 students have contributed to twenty-four First Story anthologies, and you can read extracts from some of them here. If you like what you see, you can purchase our anthologies to support our work in schools and help promote our students’ writing.
Wishlist
Our wishlist consists of items which would really help us deliver the First Story programme in areas of need.
Volunteer
Please get in touch if you would like to volunteer for First Story – we would love to hear from you. You can read more here.
Our thanks to:
- The Trustees and Advisory Board of First Story
- The Royal Society of Literature for their support and endorsement
- Ed Baden-Powell for legal advice
- Alex Fry at Psycle Interactive, for supporting us with this website
- Dr Andrew Green of Brunel University for programme research and evaluation
- Andy Holt and Sara Cronlund at Experian
- Kate Harris and Oxford University Press for publishing the Oxford schools’ anthologies
- Sam and Joe Miller for photography and filming expertise
- Avon DataSet for typesetting all of the London anthologies
- Tony Lyons for the anthologies covers
We would also like to thank the following people for their generous advice, time and support:
Laura Barber, Juli Beattie, Alain de Botton, Sophie Dahl, Molly Dallas, Maggie Fergusson, Boris Johnson, Kate Kunac-Tabinor, St Paul’s Girls’ School, Philip Pullman, Rebecca Salt, John and Virginia Murray, Strada Restaurant Group, Christine Lawson, Rosalind Porter, TeachFirst, Amanda Tricass, Sophie Breese, Chris Smith and Hannah Westland.
First Story is a fantastic idea.
Teenagers are under increasing pressure to tailor their work to exams, and to value themselves in terms of the results. First Story offers young people something else. It helps them find a voice.
Creative writing can change people’s lives: I’ve seen it happen. It’s more than learning a skill. It’s about learning that you, your family, your culture and your view of the world are rich and interesting and important, whoever you happen to be.
Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
