We are a group of people who love chess and want to make it safe, inclusive and fun for everyone. We are players, commentators, authors and organisers; some of us make a living from chess and some of us are just passionate about the game, but we all agree that chess is for everyone. The Women in Chess Foundation’s mission is to empower women in the chess community and actively work to make it safer for everyone to play chess.

Only 15% of rated chess players are women-–we want to increase that number. The reasons for this participation gap vary widely, but we believe many women do not feel safe at tournaments. Our first goal is to eliminate that barrier entirely with our advocacy programme and safety guideline reform.

The Women in Chess Foundation’s three main projects at the moment are: The Advocacy Initiative, Safeplay Guideline Reform and spotlighting Women’s Chess. As a new organization we plan to focus on these goals for the foreseeable future but have long term goals of establishing mentorship programs, having scholarships for young up and coming female chess players, as well as support groups for survivors.

The Advocacy Initiative is our main program that is aimed at putting independent Advocates at chess tournaments in order to support survivors of misconduct or anyone else who might need support.

Our Advocates are trained to identify and work with misconducts of all types from sexual harassment to bullying. While our Advocates are not licensed mental health professionals, they do have the empathetic capacity to work with survivors and provide them resources to understand what their options are moving forward.

First, we are so sorry for what you have been through. You can use our website, specifically the Find and Advocate page, to put yourself in contact with a local advocate that will talk to you about your options. If a local advocate is not available, we can put you in touch with another advocate who you are comfortable with.

WICF Advocates are people you can confide in and with whom you can discuss what has happened in order to understand what your options are. This being said, WICF Advocates will never conduct the formal reporting process to institutions like FIDE or National Chess Federations on a survivor’s behalf, nor is the Women in Chess Foundation a reporting agency. The Women in Chess Foundation does have an oversight process in place to ensure the safety of both you and the Advocates. We hope to use this oversight process as a means to keep clubs and federations accountable, but intend to do this in a way that protects survivors and the information they entrust to us.

Yes. It is important to feel safe and supported and if your closest advocate is not someone you would like to talk to (for any reason), we can put you in touch with someone else.

If you are over 18 and can pass a background check, sign up on the ‘Become and Advocate’ page.

The training session costs €35 but is free if you are under 25. We recognise that this is a lot of money in some countries, so if cost is an issue, please send us an email at contact@womeninchess.com and we will do everything we can to help.

The training takes one full day (including a lunch break) and is usually conducted in a small Zoom group.

Send us an email at contact@womeninchess.com and we’ll be happy to help!