Campaign for Growth
The Need is Great, The Time is Now
A 10-Year Vision to Triple the Clubhouse Network
Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability worldwide and society’s response to the urgent mental health crisis continues to be severely lacking. Mental illness accounts for 20% of the global burden of disease but only 3% of the world’s healthcare budgets are allocated to mental health needs, resulting in critical deficiencies in mental health care.
Mental illness pushes people to the margins of society to live an invisible, lonely, and desperate life excluded from friendships, education, employment, and community. The cost is immeasurable and the impact on the global economy is growing.
We invite conversations about how you can join this effort. Continue reading to learn more and get involved today.
A Demonstrated Solution: Clubhouse
The Clubhouse Model is a time-tested, evidence-based approach that provides opportunities for people living with mental illness to rebuild their lives.
Members in Accredited Clubhouses have higher rates of employment; a significant decrease in hospitalizations; reduced incarcerations; and better physical and mental health. The annual cost of Clubhouses is about one-third to one-half the cost of several other well-known psychosocial recovery models.
The Clubhouse Model is gaining recognition and support from mental health advocates and government agencies as an important part of the solution to the global mental health crisis.
The time is right to expand Clubhouse into many more communities.
A Recognized Leader: Clubhouse International
Clubhouse International is marking 30 years of successfully building and strengthening a worldwide network of Clubhouses for people living with mental illness.
Created to expand the number of Clubhouses worldwide and to lead the process of creating a quality assurance mechanism now called Accreditation, Clubhouse International is the only global leader helping to advance the Clubhouse Model as a community-based solution worldwide.
In the U.S. and around the world, we are the largest network of recovery-oriented programs for people living with mental illness and the only network of service providers that engages, first-hand, those with lived experience as a core organizational principle.
A New Plan for Growth
In recent years, interest in the Clubhouse Model has surged, leading to record training and support requests. To meet this demand, we’ve launched a strategic plan aimed at significantly accelerating the establishment of new Clubhouses.
Historically, we’ve grown by 5-6% annually, but with proper investment, we aim to double the number of Clubhouses in seven years and triple it in ten.
Our vision is to make Clubhouses as widespread and accessible as local YMCAs.
Organizational Priorities to Meet Growing Demand
To achieve our vision, we must make strategic investments in our organizational capacity and engage larger numbers of people and communities, in a variety of different ways.
Clubhouses are sophisticated opportunity centers and Clubhouse International provides the networking, education, training and advocacy to support that network. We have many initiatives in our new strategic plan that include wellness programming, data collection, research and more.
We have prioritized three focus areas that will have the most substantial impact on our ability to support the development of self-sustaining Clubhouses and improving local mental health systems for years to come.
Detailed plans for each of the three following elements are available upon request. To ensure success, we must also invest in enhanced communications.
Bringing Our Plan to Life
This strategic plan and vision will cost more than $13 million. We have program service revenue for a portion of it, but we need to raise $7.3 million in philanthropic support over the next three years. We have three specific needs to execute this plan:
- Recruiting our next generation of board members. Referrals (or self-referrals) to potential board members is a critical component of our growth ahead.
- Expanding our community of support. We are looking for introductions to others who would be interested in our work, particularly media and corporate leadership.
- Individuals, corporations and foundations coming together to raise $7.3 million to achieve this vision.
The 30th Anniversary Campaign for Growth presents a unique opportunity for those committed to helping address the crisis in investment for mental health services and wanting to make systems-level change for people living with serious mental illness, in the U.S. and abroad.
We invite conversations about how you can join this effort.
Connect with Teri Chadwick tchadwick@clubhouse-intl.org +1 212 582 0343 x109 to learn more.