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Digital apps can bridge the gap between the fractured, unsustainable status quo to the inclusive, equitable, healthier future. By focusing on social returns while the market focuses on financial returns, philanthropy can catalyze these transformative innovations, reaching millions, even tens of millions of patients needlessly suffering without treatment, and shaping the future of both technology and mental health. 

Everyone deserves affordable, accessible, effective mental health care. Digital health tools for both adults and kids, if used safely and effectively, can help achieve this. Often, due to regulatory barriers and lack of reimbursement, innovative digital tools don’t reach those who need them the most, especially at-risk populations.

A growing number of philanthropists are exploring the impact of developing a universally available, community-based system of care for people experiencing mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) crises and emergencies. Such a system would be built on principles of racial justice, health equity, digital health and advanced technologies, local control, and financial sustainability. One key outcome of this system is that jails, emergency rooms, and prisons are no longer the default response for people with MH/ SUD conditions when they experience a crisis or emergency. 

What role can the private sector play in the decriminalization of mental illness? How can the private sector stimulate care models that prioritize housing, transportation and the other social supports that are so indispensable to people with mental illness? Does new technology hold a key for decriminalizing mental illness? At the 2022 Sozosei Summit, we discussed how to develop the foundational culture shifts to enable sustainable business models, scaling of the most promising care models, better integration of technology for criminalized populations, and more widespread innovation and development.

Students are struggling with mental health issues due to COVID and its aftereffects. While the youth mental health crisis is well-publicized, solutions are in shorter supply. This article by Shalene Gupta describes the crisis and notes efforts by a client-funded project called The Path Forward, a multi-stakeholder, national-local push to promote evidence-based, data-driven practices and policies with the best chances of increasing equitable access to quality mental health care and accelerating integration of mental health and addiction care into the broader health system.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on our nation’s mental health, including a substantial impact on children and families. The pandemic has also caused increases in unemployment and financial pressures, and there have been questions about how philanthropic organizations might help alleviate the burdens this crisis has created. In an effort to better understand, inform, and support their members who give in this area, The Philanthropy Roundtable surveyed members who fund children’s mental health initiatives to determine if their plans for funding have changed, and if technical assistance is needed to meet their philanthropic goals and objectives.