Pioneers are proving that philanthropy has the power to transform global mental health

In biology, pioneer species start the process of preparing an ecosystem for life. Once established, they are joined by more species and a stable community begins to form.

In global mental health, there is a huge, barren wasteland between need and demand and the funding and services available. It is a daunting and often dangerous place to be for the millions who are not prevented from experiencing mental health challenges or provided with the right support when they do. There is so much potential being wasted worldwide and so much unnecessary pain.

The World Health Organization claims that lost productivity associated with anxiety and depression costs the global economy about $1 trillion a year. Beyond these numbers, the impact on individual lives, families and communities is profound.

Campaigners, charities and public professionals have been trying for years to reclaim some ground and bridge this gap. But government and aid funding is at least $200 billion short of catching up to current needs, let alone preparing for the future.

In recent years, thanks to the work of many organizations, brave champions and high-profile figures, a number of private individuals, companies and foundations are leading the way, pioneering investment to close the mental health funding gap.

Prospira Global’s first-ever Global Mental Health Financing Insights Report shows the ‘green shoots’ that this philanthropy is helping to establish. While the $74 million of private philanthropy donated to global mental health last year amounted to less than 1% of the private development assistance for health, the pioneers are having an impact and leading the way for others.

This new report, launched at the first Intersection of Finance and Mental Health Summit in New York, hosted by the REAL Mental Health Foundation, looks at the challenges these pioneers face in funding mental health work worldwide and why they do it. As always with pioneers, the passion often stems from personal experience. Other drivers for funding pioneers include increased pressure to act, rising from the importance that the public, customers and staff place on mental health and wellbeing, which is a credit to the decades of campaigning worldwide.

The advantage and opportunity that philanthropy is showing is the speed, agility and ability to back new and developing ideas, approaches and organizations. Collaboration also unlocks the mutual, two-way benefit of sharing different skills and tools.

The report was informed by a global survey of philanthropic funders, which found that a major barrier to growing this group of pioneers and the amount being invested, is the lack of visibility around the landscape of philanthropic funding for mental health.

Many private funders do not disclose their funding amounts. For the first time, the report released today has sought to recognize and celebrate the private funders who are leading the way, publishing a ‘top ten’ of major global philanthropic funders focusing on mental health.

We are also calling for a more open system of sharing this kind of financing information more transparently. More transparency will bring clarity to funding decisions, motivate others to give, enable collaboration and help a broader range of organizations worldwide access investment.

Money is critical, but so too are the right partnerships for an approach to find a foothold and flourish. The report highlights just some of the many proven partners and ideas that simply need more investment to benefit more people and communities.

Cotton On Foundation joined with the Born This Way Foundation to raise $5 million, through a worldwide product campaign, and invest $3 million in expanding the charity’s Kindness in the Community Fund. This fund supports 65 mental health grass-roots community organizations led by, and for, young people across ten countries.

The Play and Heal initiative, a partnership between the LEGO Foundation, UNICEF and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, focuses on supporting the social-emotional well-being of children and their caregivers who have been impacted by humanitarian disasters across Lebanon, Türkiye and Syria.

Funders shared that they find the scale of mental health needs daunting when considering how they can make a difference with their limited funds.

The report called out three insights that offer potential solutions to the funding challenges for philanthropists:

1. Integrating mental health into existing and connected philanthropic priorities is successfully accelerating action, an approach that has been championed by Kate Spade New York and its Foundation in integrating mental health as a priority in women’s equality.

2. Funders are becoming fundraisers, pooling and raising funds to invest together. Gabriella Fitzgerald from Panorama Global, advises in the report on how pooled funds can be most effective.

3. Private-public partnerships are catalyzing investment and action in mental health, as LEGO and the Danish Government are demonstrating

Striding forward equipped with these insights, the pioneers in philanthropy can continue to help create and grow opportunities to prevent and respond to mental health problems worldwide. With more bold pioneers and more funds, we look ahead with hope to an established, stable ecosystem and community that protects and enhances the mental health of everyone, everywhere.