Dear TGW Supporters,

Our Board of Directors has approved almost $4M in grantmaking for 2025 based on your generous contributions. We expect to make 5 grants with those funds in 2025. We are grateful to you for trusting us to invest these donations wisely in nonprofits poised to make a transformative impact on youth mental health. 

We are excited to share news of our newest grant to Reach University. We have committed $1 million over 3 years to Reach — a nonprofit university advancing apprenticeship degrees in care industries, to address the urgent shortages in the behavioral health workforce. The Reach Behavioral Health Pathway will create opportunities for those employed in health systems and community organizations to gain academic credit for work experience while pursuing a stackable series of degrees, starting with the Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree, and eventually leading to a B.A. and M.A. degree. This program will allow thousands of frontline workers to become behavioral health professionals, addressing the nation’s growing mental health crisis.

Reach University uniquely turns jobs into degrees, serving as our nation’s first and only nonprofit university fully dedicated to advancing on-the-job degrees and credentials, known as Apprenticeship Degrees. By fostering economic mobility, building careers, and inspiring deeper learning through inquiry, dialogue, collaboration, and on-the-job practice, Reach and its partners are actively solving America's behavioral health labor shortages. Reach creates comprehensive pathways for high-potential individuals to earn degrees, credentials, and professional careers in their home communities by translating current job responsibilities into progress toward a degree. Reach currently operates in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee, with plans to expand.

The critical shortage of licensed behavioral health workers is exacerbating the nation's post-pandemic mental health crisis. In 2022, approximately 59 million (23%) U.S. adults reported a mental illness, but nearly half did not receive treatment due in part to limited provider access and coverage gaps. Over the next decade the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates an annual nationwide shortage of more than 80,000 licensed social workers (LSWs), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) projects the nation will lack half of the behavioral health workforce required to meet demand by 2036. Reach also anticipates partnering with behavioral health apprenticeship programs in peer counseling, addiction counseling, and other fields, as it aligns its job-embedded degree model to meet the estimated average of 42,000 openings through 2032.

Reach has successfully implemented their novel model to increase the workforce in the education space by partnering with 420 K-12 school systems in eight states to provide apprenticeship degree pathways for paraprofessionals and other school employees. Reach ensures employers can train high-potential staff on the job to earn a degree and fill specialized professional vacancies through a degree that is workplace-based, renders credit for work the learner does on the job, and is offered without student loan debt. Reach plans to leverage its expertise in scaling job-embedded degrees to support entry-level workers in the behavioral health space earning the degrees and credentials needed to build a professional career.

Reach is able to keep the cost to participants far lower than a traditional university. Degree seekers are paid by their employer as they complete their on-the-job degree. After grants and scholarships, the expected out-of-pocket contribution for a full-time undergraduate is $900 per year, or $75 per month, with no student loan debt.

We are thrilled to be working with all of you to make this significant investment to expand the mental health workforce and ensure more young people have access to the care they need.

Warmly, 

Celine