Collaboration with other Donors for larger, deeper Interventions: “The Goodness Web”
Concept: Pooling resources of many ‘like-minded donors adds to 1) Resources, 2) Ideas (complimentary & synergistic), 3) Visibility (plus a wider pool of programs) & 4) Critical Mass.
Our partner: The Goodness Web is a donor partnership addressing mental illness. It pools funds from dozens of families and foundations, then issues grants to a carefully vetted set of programs. The first set of grants were made in 2022 and there is an ambitious scaleup of activity planned for the next few years. Read more about The Goodness Web at https://www.thegoodnessweb.org/.
Our role: IF is one of the organizations involved in this partnership and participates in the investment committee selecting programs to be funded.
Context: People with severe mental illness (e.g., bipolar disorder) need more than just medications. Peers with similar diseases offer understanding and are often ready to help… without a high-cost burden. The bottleneck? Their lack of training! How can they be empowered?
A potential solution: A state-of-the-art curriculum to train people living with mental illness with skills to offer peer support! It will be developed and tested under the supervision of a world-class authority: Prof. Vikram Patel of Harvard Medical School. IF is one of the two key donors of this program. This open-source curriculum will be co-created with participants from India & the USA, and should be applicable in multiple geographies.
Our Partner, EMPOWER, is part of the Mental Health for All Lab at Harvard Medical School led by Dr Patel. An earlier version created a digital platform for providers to learn and master evidence-based psychological treatments. Our involvement extends that earlier work to focus on peer-support within the context of severe mental illness.
Read about EMPOWER at https://mentalhealthforalllab.hms.harvard.edu/empower