Every May, Mental Health Awareness Month invites a national conversation about emotional well-being, the people who struggle in silence, the systems that too often fail them, and the providers, advocates and peers working to close the gap. Established in 1949 by Mental Health America, the observance has steadily expanded its scope from clinical awareness to something broader: a recognition that mental health is health and that everyone deserves access, dignity and care.

Nonprofit professionals health awareness

Let’s spend a moment now on people sometimes left out of that conversation: nonprofit professionals.

Tough structural realities

If you work in or near the nonprofit sector, you know it’s a turbulent space. Needs are urgent, resources are thin, hours are long and the people who choose this work keep going, even when they should probably press pause. 

Mission-driven work is meaningful, but it can be exhausting. Compassion fatigue, burnout, secondary trauma and chronic underinvestment are not personal failings. They are structural realities of an underresourced sector being asked to do too much with not nearly enough, year after year.

Time needed for self-care

Before we talk about the nonprofits we're featuring this month, we want to say something to the people doing the work: please take care of yourselves. Take the day off. Take the walk. Take the call from a friend. Take the self-care appointment you've been putting off. The cause you serve will be better for a rested you, and so will the people who love you. Rest is not a reward you earn after the work is done. It is part of how the work gets done.

This article is part of our Breakthrough Nonprofits series, an extension of our monthly newsletter for nonprofit professionals. The series shines a light on organizations that refuse to accept the status quo, finding new ways to clear the path for the people they serve. Supporting any of the nonprofits below means contributing to a future where mental health care is more accessible, more equitable and within reach for everyone: including the people who dedicate their lives to caring for others.

The nonprofits

The Give Lively member nonprofits featured below are leading examples of breakthrough work in mental health and adjacent fields: from A Moment of Magic, bringing trauma-informed play to medically vulnerable children, to Sad Girls Club, destigmatizing mental health for young women and women of color; from Guitars for Vets, placing instruments in the hands of veterans healing from PTSD, to Service Program for Older People, the only organization in New York City exclusively dedicated to the mental and behavioral health of older adults. They are joined by shelters, recovery centers, sliding-scale clinics, family programs and community health networks, each pushing past the barriers that keep people from the care they deserve.

Flagstaff Shelter Services 

Flagstaff Shelter Services is northern Arizona's largest emergency shelter. It provides safe housing and wraparound services to individuals and families experiencing homelessness 365 days a year, no matter their faith, sobriety status or mental health. Its doors are always open and its approach goes far beyond a warm bed: case management, healthcare access and housing placement help guests move from crisis to stability for good.

Healing New York 

Founded in 1875 as the USA's first child protection agency, Healing New York delivers trauma-informed counseling and educational services to abused and neglected children and their families across New York City. Through its Training Institute, it also equips child welfare professionals nationwide with best-practice tools to protect more children and help more families heal.

Guitars for Vets 

Guitars for Vets puts the healing power of music in the hands of veterans living with PTSD and other service-related trauma. It offers a free 10-week guitar instruction program, a new instrument and a community of peers who truly get it. With chapters across the country, it has given more than 5,000 guitars to veterans who deserve every chance to find connection, renewal and joy through music.

Petaluma People Services Center 

For more than 50 years, Petaluma People Services Center has been a trusted hub of care for the California’s Sonoma County community. It delivers programs across five focus areas: housing stability, mental health and counseling, senior services, youth mentorship and crisis response. From mobile crisis teams and fair housing advocacy to home-delivered meals and youth mentoring, it meets people where they are with compassion and consistency.

American Psychiatric Association Foundation 

The American Psychiatric Association Foundation is the philanthropic and educational arm of the world's largest organization of physician-psychiatrists, working toward a simple but powerful goal: a mentally healthy nation for all. Through its community-based programs, fellowships for early-career psychiatrists, public awareness campaigns and grants to innovative mental health organizations, it is building a future where mental healthcare is accessible, equitable and no longer carries a stigma.

LADMC Foundation 

LADMC Foundation is a nonprofit working to strengthen public health and expand access to healthcare careers in underserved communities throughout Los Angeles County. Through its nursing scholarship programs, leadership training and community health fairs that serve thousands of residents each year, it is building a stronger healthcare workforce while bringing free wellness education and screenings directly to the neighborhoods that need them most.

A Moment of Magic 

A Moment of Magic is a national nonprofit that brings play-based, trauma-informed programming to medically vulnerable children facing serious illness, reminding them that they are always kids first. Powered by college student volunteers and active in more than 300 hospitals and partner organizations, its Creative Play programs, Joy Deliveries and mental wellness initiatives have reached more than 185,000 children in need since 2014.

Dallas Hope Charities 

Dallas Hope Charities provides food, shelter and vital support services to LGBTQIA+ individuals and homeless youth in the Dallas, Texas, area, with a vision to end hunger and eliminate homelessness for good. Its programs include the Hope Center (Dallas's first LGBTQIA+ homeless youth transitional living center), the Collective Hope Coalition resource hub and Hopeful Discussions workshops that help build a more informed and inclusive community.

Team Up Mentoring 

Team Up Mentoring in Monroe, Georgia, is doing something genuinely rare: making an up-to-18-year investment in each child and family it serves, combining trauma-informed mentoring with holistic case management to break generational cycles of adversity. Focused on long-term relationships and whole-child support across education, mental health and empowerment, its model is one of only a handful of its kind in the USA.

Amethyst Place

Amethyst Place is a long-term supportive housing program in Kansas City, Missouri, that helps women and children recover from the interconnected cycles of substance use, trauma and poverty. Through its safe housing, family empowerment programming and therapeutic services, it has been home to more than 437 families and 851 children since 2000, with 95% of children in out-of-home placement successfully reunified with their mothers through the program.

Service Program for Older People 

Service Program for Older People is the only organization in New York City exclusively dedicated to the mental health and behavioral health needs of adults age 55 and older. It provides individual and group therapy, medication management, free bereavement support and specialized recovery services. Since 1972, it has worked to break down the stigma, language barriers and access challenges that too often keep older New Yorkers from getting the care they deserve.

The Northwest Catholic Counseling Center 

The Northwest Catholic Counseling Center has been providing professional, compassionate mental health services to the Portland, Oregon, community since 1986, with a firm belief that quality care is a right, not a privilege. Its sliding scale fees ensure that financial barriers never stand between someone and the therapy, counseling or psychiatric support they need, and its services are open to everyone regardless of faith background or insurance status.

The Alano Club of Portland Oregon 

The Alano Club of Portland has been a free, inclusive recovery support center for more than 60 years and now serves more than 10,000 people every single month. It hosts over 100 mutual-aid meetings weekly and offers a diverse range of programs, including fitness, art, cooking, yoga, legal aid and peer mentoring to anyone seeking recovery from substance use or mental health disorders. It was the first organization of its kind to pioneer a holistic, evidence-based Recovery Toolkit approach in a community-centered environment.

Community Healthcare Network 

Community Healthcare Network is the largest network of federally qualified health centers in New York City. It operates 14 clinics across Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan, plus mobile health vans that bring care directly to underserved communities. Serving more than 65,000 New Yorkers annually, it provides judgment-free primary care, dental services, mental health support and much more, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.

Sad Girls Club 

Founded in 2017 by filmmaker and activist Elyse Fox, Sad Girls Club is a nonprofit community and online platform committed to destigmatizing mental health and creating safe, accessible spaces for young women and women of color to heal, connect and grow. Through its therapy scholarships, virtual group sessions, in-person community events and education resources, it is working to reduce the global suicide rate and ensure that mental wellness is a conversation no one has to have alone.