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Original Publication

May 22, 2026

Updated

June 2, 2026

This Mental Health Awareness Month, we are naming clearly that mental health is critical to enabling people to care for themselves, their communities, and participate in the decisions that impact their lives.

A functioning multiracial democracy depends on people having the mental and emotional capacity needed to organize, respond to crises, and be engaged in civic life. But democracy is not a static system sustained by elections alone — it is an ongoing practice rooted in participation, belonging, accountability, and collective power. And that practice requires people who are able to care for themselves wholistically.

Many people, and especially BIPOC, disabled, queer, and trans folks, who are navigating overlapping systems of harm—from rising rents to the erosion of civil liberties, barriers to healthcare, overpolicing, and ongoing attacks on bodily autonomy—survive by cycling through both chronic stress and burnout. This exhaustion is a structural barrier to the civic life democracy requires.

Material conditions—like housing and jobs—are necessary, and yet they alone cannot heal the deep exhaustion or intergenerational trauma people are carrying in their bodies and minds. This is why building truly resilient communities requires more than isolated investments in any single need. It requires philanthropy to invest in the ecosystems of care — the interconnected infrastructure of organizations, networks, and supports — that make healing and wholeness accessible and sustainable over time.

As Angela Davis said “Self-care, healing, attention to the body and the spiritual dimension—all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles… It is not just about the external struggle, it is also about the internal struggle.”

At Borealis Philanthropy, we know that our movements are only as sustainable as people’s ability to tend to the struggles they carry. We are proud to resource visionaries across the country building the vital infrastructure of care—offering support that makes healing and wholeness accessible for all:

  • Depressed While Black supports Black people living in psychiatric facilities through affirming care packages, advocacy, and mental health resources designed to ease isolation and foster healing and connection.
  • National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network connects queer and trans people of color to culturally affirming therapists, healing justice resources, and mental health support grounded in shared lived experiences.
  • Deep Space Mind 215 offers community healing spaces rooted in mental wellness, care, and land stewardship, offering free herbs and produce and educational workshops that help inform and bring communities together.
  • Fireweed Collective provides mental health resources, crisis care tools, and community education that help people navigate emotional distress in ways that feel loving and  affirming.
  • Project LETS builds peer support collectives, leads political education, develops new ways of understanding mental distress, and creates peer-led alternatives to traditional mental health systems.
  • Chainless Change guides justice-impacted people through peer-led mental health and recovery programs, housing assistance, and mutual aid.

These organizations are only a glimpse into a much larger ecosystem of healing that our grantee partners are leading. For the decade since our inception, Borealis’ work has been informed by the wisdom of grassroots organizers who make clear that wellness is a necessity for the liberated world we are building.

 

“Care can be soft; it can be sweet; it can be tender, but it’s not just soft, sweet, tender aspiration, it’s an atmosphere we co-create and tend to. It isn’t separate from strategy; it’s what makes strategy sustainable. When care is structural, political, and urgent, our people, our culture, and our institutions thrive, wholly and solidly, into the future.”
– Alicia Bell, Program Director, Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, Borealis Philanthropy


This commitment is the heartbeat of our work, whether we are deepening our collective education through Healing Justice Lineages or resourcing the right to rest through our Joy Grants, we remain dedicated to ensuring that all people have what they need and deserve.

But the health of our movements and our democracy depends on more than any single program or intervention. It depends on the health of entire ecosystems — the organizations, networks, and connective infrastructure that sustain people through crisis and into the stability required to live, lead, and engage.

How Can Funders Resource Mental Wellbeing?

Philanthropy often treats mental health as separate from movement building, and treats both as separate from democracy. But they are not distinct investments; they are inseparable conditions of the same goal.

Short-term, reactive funding undermines the long-term democratic stability our communities need. When funders resource isolated programs rather than whole ecosystems, they leave movement leaders without the sustained support required to do the work sustained liberatory efforts demand of them. Here’s how to invest differently:

  • Fund ecosystems over individual interventions: Invest in the networks, coalitions, and infrastructure that allow healing and wellbeing organizations to reach people sustainably — not just in individual programs responding to immediate need.
  • Fund the intersections: Resource organizations providing affirming mental health care for communities – understanding that mental health, housing, safety, and economic stability are not separate issues.
  • Commit to the long haul: Provide long-term, flexible funding that allows organizations to build durable infrastructure, respond quickly to what communities are navigating, and plan beyond the next grant cycle..
  • Trust the expertise of the work: Trust grassroots organizers to define what care, healing, and support look like within their own communities. And fund that vision, abundantly.

And finally, partner with Borealis to resource the grassroots organizers strengthening the conditions that make wellness and participation possible. Together, we can fund the people who keep our communities whole and build the power necessary to protect and advance the promise of an inclusive, multiracial democracy.