The Work

Teens face a number of nuanced challenges that make them far more at risk of experiencing substance abuse, depression, suicide, homicide, and accidental death than older demographics. This is why our organization is dedicated to creating opportunities for young people to find, discover, and develop their authentic voices, generate a greater sense of self-awareness, and improve their abilities to write, speak, think, and thrive in the world. 

Phonetic Spit's teaching artists work within schools, group homes, detention centers, and shelters. They employ arts education and literacy programs centered around the written and spoken word that empower and transform the lives of young people.  Our approach is to offer young people tools and experiences that enhance their social, emotional, cultural, and academic literacy.  The vast majority of the young people we serve hail from working-class backgrounds, many of whom are raised in homes where English is not the primary language and identify with one or more marginalized community demographic indicators. 

Key Programs

Project Lit - Phonetic Spit partners with the Mesa Art Center to sponsor as many as 15 poetry clubs in valley schools each year. 

Mic Check - is the only consistent youth poetry open mic in the state of Arizona. It supports the voices of hundreds of youth (the majority of whom reside in foster care or group homes) and is conducted in partnership with Free Arts of Arizona.

Liberated Lyrics - serves young people spending time in the Juvenile Detention system and serves hundreds of young people each year. 

Poetic Profiles - works specifically with 11th-grade students to explore and develop their abilities as writers, speakers, and thinkers by profiling subjects of their choosing (i.e.  Kurt Cobain, Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou etc). Students present their capstones at The Phoenix Art Museum each year.

About Phonetic Spit & Level Up Month to Month

Phonetic Spit began as a youth poetry movement in 2011, established its status as a non-profit 501(c)(3) in 2016, and has impacted the lives of over 75,000 young people in Arizona since its inception. Phonetic Spit hired its first Executive Director in 2021 and has made considerable strides in building institutional capacity and expanding programmatic reach. Phonetic Spit served over 12,000 young people in 2023.

As a small and emerging nonprofit, we face a number of fundraising challenges.  In 2021, in order to maintain funds to pay rent for office space and sustain our organization, we launched our first online fundraising campaign on GiveLively. We raised over $40,000 in two years and acquired 470 donations with an average donation of $84.  Most many of our donors were generous enough to give us monthly contributions, which helped us better calculate and financially plan.  Our organizational monthly overhead is roughly ~$12,000 - $16,000, and our monthly donors have offset these costs in a generous fashion averaging $1,400 in monthly contributions. 

Please consider helping us level up month by month! 

Every dollar counts!