Fund the reset button.
$250,000 runs the first retreats start to finish: the SOS matchmaking app, the flights, the stay, the clinicians who keep it safe, and the 90 days after. Gifts start at $50. Every dollar maps to a named cost, and results are published before we ask for more.
$250,000 is the total, not what any one person is asked for. The gift levels show what each size does.
Your money buys something you can picture, and the problem actually gets worked on.
It works on the problem, not just the feeling
Most help for someone in crisis is a conversation. ESCAPE pays for work on the thing that was crushing them: housing, work, debt, grief support, treatment. Crisis lines help in the moment. ESCAPE is built for what comes next.
You can see what it bought
A stay, a flight, a deposit, a debt counselor, a retraining course, and the insurance, clinicians and checks that make a stay safe. Reporting comes back in those same terms, checked independently, never with anyone's identity attached.
No buildings to buy
ESCAPE works with existing venues and licensed partners instead of buying a campus on day one. Less money tied up in bricks, a faster start, and less risk for everyone.
The risks, and what we do about them
Someone could get hurt
Poor screening or untrained volunteers would harm people and end the organization. So: a licensed clinical director is the first hire, a clinical committee can stop anything, urgent cases go to a contracted crisis service, and we start with adults in one US state.
Stays could get expensive fast
Housing, staffing and clinical care can outgrow donations. So: stays run with partners at existing venues, no stay is approved until its money is confirmed, and filling beds is never a reason to admit someone.
Trying to do too much
A global app, a clinic network, a chain of retreats and relocation services all at once would fail. So: one city region, one adult group, and an independent review at the end of year one before anything grows.
One pilot budget first. Everything else waits for its results.
We will not grow until four questions are answered with data: do people say yes, can we keep them safe, are they better off three months later, and what does it really cost.
One complete supported-retreat pilot
Funds the whole experience, not a platform: operator and venue, participant travel, clinical screening and safety, a named follow-up person for 90 days, a practical-help fund, insurance and an independent evaluation. Hosted by an established nonprofit. Not a standalone crisis center, not a facility, not a large app build.
| What it pays for | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Retreat operator, venue and program (two groups) | $80,000 | 32% |
| Clinical screening, oversight and crisis partner | $40,000 | 16% |
| Aftercare: named follow-up person and practical-help fund | $40,000 | 16% |
| Legal, insurance, compliance and host-nonprofit fee | $25,000 | 10% |
| Participant travel support and costs | $20,000 | 8% |
| Intake and follow-up tool (Connect, kept small), privacy and security | $20,000 | 8% |
| Cushion for surprises | $15,000 | 6% |
| Independent check of the results | $10,000 | 4% |
| Total | $250,000 | 100% |
A proposed draft, to be confirmed with the retreat operator, the lawyers and the lead clinician. Not quotes.
Year two: stays all year round
Opens only once the first stays have been independently reviewed for safety, results and cost.
| Use | Amount |
|---|---|
| Stays, support and the 90 days after, for a full year | $550,000 |
| Preparing more venues and partners | $75,000 |
| Independent research | $50,000 |
| Reserve for emergencies and lean months | $75,000 |
| Total | $750,000 |
A planning split. Does not include building or buying a residential center of our own. Leaves only a small reserve and will be refined once lawyers and clinicians have costed it.
What the $250,000 does not cover
- Anything beyond the two pilot stays: year two is a separate $750,000, not yet raised
- Salaries for a permanent team; the pilot pays clinicians, operators and helpers by the hour or per group
- A finished app; the pilot uses a deliberately small version
- Any building, lease or campus
What the pilot must deliver before step 2
- How many people offered a free stay actually come, and where the others drop out
- Aftercare delivered: a named person and a practical plan for every participant, 90 days measured
- An independent look at anything that went wrong, every emergency, and what guests said about it
- The real cost of one completed fresh start, counting travel, cancellations, people who turn out not to be suitable, and the 90 days after
- An honest comparison: the same named person and practical help without a stay, so we know what the stay itself adds
- Multi-year pledges and at least one real conversation about a contract with a health system or county
Give to something specific.
Instead of a general request to run a nonprofit, ESCAPE offers tangible categories to fund. Donors see aggregate impact and independently validated results, never the identity of a person being helped.
Sponsor a Connection
Peer support and follow-up calls for one person.
Sponsor a Fresh Start
Practical help for one person: rent arrears, paperwork, a job interview.
Sponsor an Experience
Contributes toward one supported stay, travel included.
Sponsor a Rebuild
A stay plus the 90 days of support after it.
What a gift could pay for
Move the slider. Each box is a different way to spend the same gift, not all of them at once. Prices are planning figures until the first stays are costed, and a $2,500 gift is a share of a stay, not a whole one.
A note on the arithmetic: in the first year the full cost per guest is about $10,400, because set-up, insurance and evaluation are shared across only 24 guests. So $2,500 is a contribution toward a stay, and $10,000 is roughly one guest's share of the pilot's full cost: the stay, the 90 days after, and their slice of the shared set-up. If the model works, the cost per guest should fall as more people come through. Each row in the calculator is a different way to spend the same gift, not all of them at once. Illustrative tiers, not verified costs or promises of individual outcomes. Actual expenditures and any restrictions on gifts are disclosed. Donors sponsor a category; the charity selects beneficiaries independently under a written assistance policy.
Amounts are proposed fundraising targets, not verified market averages or donor commitments.
The longer-term finances, for those who want the full picture.
Everything above is about the first pilot. Everything below is about what comes after it, if the results are good: how a charity like this pays for itself, what a full year costs, and why we test small before anyone buys a campus. Planning scenarios, not forecasts.
Why a charity, and why we start under someone else's
The legal structure follows the plan, not the other way round.
If grants and donations are central, the funding plan has to be concrete. If they are not, a charity needs a reason to exist instead of a company. Here is the honest answer.
A project hosted by an established nonprofit
The pilot runs under a host's charitable status, governance, insurance and grant-writing. Donors give to the host, earmarked for ESCAPE. We borrow trust we have not earned yet, and we do not spend a year on paperwork before helping anyone. One trade-off we weigh openly: a large host can make us ineligible for the smaller grants aimed at young charities.
Our own 501(c)(3), if the pilot earns it
Nonprofit status is what makes county and health-system contracts, foundation grants and tax-deductible gifts possible, and it removes any incentive to fill beds. Those are the long-term engines in our model, so it is the default.
A company, only if the money says so
If the pilot shows the model is mainly funded by employers or paying participants rather than grants and contracts, a company in the chosen state or country is the right vehicle. We will decide with the data, not with a preference.
How it pays for itself long term
A charity that doesn't live on donations forever.
Contracts with health systems and governments become the long-term engine. Donations pay for new ideas, for access, and for the things no contract will cover.
ESCAPE stays free for people who cannot pay. But the organization can be paid under contract for services like peer support, follow-up and help finding resources, where it and its partners qualify. California's Medi-Cal peer-support benefit is one example of such a pathway. It does not mean the app, travel or retreats would be reimbursed, and we do not forecast that they will be.
- Year 1
- Philanthropy finances the pilot.
- Year 2
- Paid pilot contracts with health systems, counties or community-care organizations.
- Year 3+
- Expand only services with proven demand, defined delivery costs and reliable financial support.
Proposed mature-stage funding mix
Target shares, not projected or secured revenue.
What a full year could look like, and the reserve rule
A $1 million year, once the model is proven.
Illustrative, for a program that has completed its first pilot and signed real service agreements. Not a forecast, and not a claim that contracts are available.
| Annual funding | Amount |
|---|---|
| Health-system and public contracts | $300,000 |
| Major donors and foundations | $250,000 |
| Corporate partnerships | $200,000 |
| Monthly donor community | $150,000 |
| Payments for services we can bill for | $100,000 |
| Total revenue | $1,000,000 |
| Annual expenses | Amount |
|---|---|
| Staff and clinical oversight | $350,000 |
| Partner services and help for guests | $230,000 |
| Technology, privacy and security | $110,000 |
| Administration, legal and insurance | $100,000 |
| Fundraising and partnerships | $90,000 |
| Independent research | $45,000 |
| Total operating expenses | $925,000 |
| Projected annual surplus | $75,000 |
A hypothetical 7.5% surplus that goes into reserves. Money is never counted as income just because a grant or contract is being chased. At $925,000 of annual expenses a six-month reserve is about $462,500, so a separate campaign for reserves is needed. The surplus alone would not build it quickly.
Reserve calculator
A board-controlled operating reserve is a condition of running services for vulnerable people. The common nonprofit benchmark is three to six months of expenses. ESCAPE targets six, because a service disruption would land on people who cannot absorb it.
A planning calculation only. Leaves out debts, money tied to specific purposes, and payments that arrive late.
How a single stay gets paid for
Every stay is paid for before it is approved.
Instead of ESCAPE paying the entire cost of every stay, each stay is paid for by a mix of sources, agreed in advance. ESCAPE's share comes from an approved assistance budget, never treated as free money. Nobody is ever billed twice for the same thing.
Emergency care is always paid for separately. It never depends on whether a guest can pay.
Total cost of the stay, hypothetical.
A real stay needs written costs, a guest who qualifies, and every payer confirmed in advance.
If we ever ran a place of our own: costs and capacity
Why we test a small pilot before anyone buys a campus.
A 12-bed residential pilot costs far more than it first appears. Here is the illustrative annual cost for a leased US facility, and what it could serve.
| What a 12-bed leased house would cost a year (illustrative) | Amount |
|---|---|
| Lease, maintenance and utilities | $150,000 |
| Residential and overnight staffing | $340,000 |
| Clinical oversight and professional services | $180,000 |
| Food, supplies and participant activities | $95,000 |
| Transport, assistance and case management | $85,000 |
| Insurance, training, administration and other | $100,000 |
| Annual subtotal | $950,000 |
| Cushion for surprises (15%) | $142,500 |
| Annual planning total | $1,092,500 |
Retreat capacity simulator
The yearly cost stays fixed while you move the sliders, so in real life costs would rise with more beds and more services. It also assumes no empty days between guests, so real numbers would be a little lower. Renovations, licences and deposits are extra.
Annual participants by retreat size
How many people a retreat could host in a year if each stay is 21 days and beds are full 85% of the time. Hosting 10,000 people a year would take about 14 sites of 50 beds, before spare capacity, waiting times or special cases. That is a residential-care network, not a wellness startup, and it is why the 1-million-user, 10,000-stay ambition is a long-term scenario rather than a first-year forecast.
The pilot budget, in plain terms.
No office, no founder salaries, no big software build. The money pays for the stay itself, the people who keep it safe, the 90 days after, and the unglamorous things that make it real: insurance, legal checks, a simple app, and an independent look at the results.
Shares of the $250,000 pilot budget. A proposed draft until the retreat operator, the lawyers and the lead clinician have costed it.
Rules we commit to before the first dollar arrives.
Money rules
- Six-month operating reserve policy, board-controlled
- Money given for a specific purpose is tracked separately from general funds
- Limited dependence on any single donor or payer
- No new residential program without secured funding for its obligations
- Monthly review of cash runway and forecast commitments
- A written wind-down and participant-transition plan
- Annual audited financial statements once scale warrants them
Ethics rules
- Donations are never solicited based on a person's suicidal state, and never a condition of help
- Donors sponsor a category; the charity selects beneficiaries independently under a formal assistance policy
- No identifying details of participants in donor reporting or marketing
- Transparent sliding-scale fees for eligible nonemergency stays, with independent financial-assistance decisions
- A public impact dashboard with metrics, spending, outcomes and limitations
- Independent research partner evaluates results
What we will measure, instead of claiming lives saved
Access
Did people reach the right help, and how fast did a human respond.
Engagement
Do people keep using it, and do they say they feel better and less alone.
Outcomes
Did the housing, the job, the treatment actually happen, checked by independent researchers.
Safety
Incidents and emergencies, reviewed independently. One trouble-free pilot would not prove it is safe.
A real opportunity, with limits.
SAMHSA made multiple suicide-prevention funding announcements in 2026, including an adult program offering up to $400,000 a year for up to four years. That round closed on July 6, 2026 and had restricted eligibility. For the first year, individual philanthropy and partnerships with established providers are faster than new government grants.
We keep a ranked shortlist of grants and review it with the host charity.
What we monitor
- SAMHSA funding announcements
- Grants.gov
- State and county behavioral-health programs
- Regional hospital and community foundations
- Corporate foundation giving programs
Join the founding conversation.
Tell us who you are and what you would consider. We will come back with the pilot budget, the partner list as it forms, and the governance documents.
- No commitment implied by registering
- Your details are never shared or sold
- Planned US charity (501(c)(3)). Whether a gift is tax-deductible depends on final status and where you live