Give · True Presence, Inc.
Support Presence+ on its mission to heal.
Sponsor a church, a mega church, or an individual as they journey to help solve the mental health crisis. We cannot license our way out of the gap. The answer is to empower the people closest to the need: ordinary people, trained and supported, inside communities that already exist. Your gift is what trains and supports them.
137MAmericans live in federally designated mental health shortage areas
27%of the mental health need in those areas is currently being met
~80%of people seeking help need accompaniment and support, not a diagnosis
Why a gift works here
The helper matters more than the method.
Decades of psychotherapy research say that most change belongs to the person's own life, strengths and supports, and that inside the helping, the relationship and the helper outweigh the technique about five to one. Those are qualities of a relationship, not of a credential. They can be taught, practiced and measured, which means the people a parish already has can be formed to offer them. That is what your gift buys: formation and support for the helpers who are already there.
It has been done
Trained lay helpers already produce real outcomes.
Friendship Bench
In a 573-person trial in Zimbabwe, 14% of those helped by trained lay workers still had depression symptoms at six months, versus 50% with usual care.
Chibanda et al., JAMA, 2016
Healthy Activity Program
In a 495-person trial in India, lay counselors treating severe depression outperformed usual care, with gains lasting a year.
Patel et al., Lancet, 2017
Paraprofessional research
Reviews have long found that trained non-professionals often achieve outcomes comparable to professionals.
Christensen & Jacobson, Psychological Science, 1994
Clergy as first responders
In national survey data, one in four people who sought help for a mental disorder went to clergy, more than went to psychiatrists.
Wang, Berglund & Kessler, HSR, 2003
They have already said yes
The people are there. Formation and support are what a gift pays for.
These coaches and guides are already helping through the Presence+ app, in their own words. Every one of them took a step from good will to being formed and measured for it. Your gift lets a parish's Companions, listeners and ministers take the same step.
Grace Morrison
Certified Catholic life coach
A periodontist, mother of seven and homeschooler for 25 years, three of whose sons are priests. She accompanies women and parents through the joys and challenges of everyday life: families with a member who has drifted from the faith, children with special needs, and young women discerning career and life choices. Also a trained Stephen Minister.
Moses Nunez
Ministry leadership coach
Nearly a decade in ministry. He helps ministry leaders build sustainable ministries so they can lead with clarity, freedom and joy, and walks with young adults through self-doubt, perfectionism and overwhelm.
Michele Simpson
Certified Catholic life coach, CRAFT-trained family coach
Works with Catholic wives and mothers watching a husband or child destroy themselves with addiction. She coaches the person who knows and loves them best to use a clinically proven approach that increases a loved one's motivation to seek treatment, while protecting their own peace.
Lora Lyons
Catholic and somatic coach
Wife, homeschool mom and Lay Carmelite with fifteen years of accompanying those who know they are made for more. Master's in Communication Management; certified in Metanoia Catholic coaching and somatic coaching. For transitions, feeling stuck, or simply longing for more peace and purpose.
Meet them in the Presence+ app Level 3 coaches and guides, with Companions and listeners in each community and licensed clinicians through Mindspirit.
Three ways to give
Sponsor a helper, a church, or a whole diocese.
Each gift funds one journey from good will to measured help. The difference between them is scale, and how soon the evidence arrives.
01
Sponsor a helper
One person on the journey from wanting to help to being formed for it.
Sponsor thisYour gift forms a Companion, an Active Listener or an accompaniment minister in the Model of the Person: the courses, a mentor who listens in with consent, deliberate practice in Melete, and a first year of helping through Raphael with the measures running from the first conversation. Many of the people who make the best helpers are the ones who cannot pay for formation: deacon candidates, campus ministers, listeners in rural parishes, people in recovery who now walk with the next one.
- ✓Formation courses from Divine Mercy University faculty
- ✓A mentor and supervised listening for the first year
- ✓Raphael, with Regular Outcomes from day one
- ✓A pathway of their own in the Presence+ app
Communities start free, and a sponsor is why. Your gift pays for the coordinator who verifies a need and responds within eight hours, forms the first cohort of Companions and ministers, puts Midst in the midst of the ministries the community already runs, and ties in the licensed professionals nearby. The community keeps its own name, leaders and rhythm. Within a year it is helping people it would otherwise have sent to a waiting list, and it can show you the outcomes.
- ✓A trained coordinator for a year
- ✓Formation for the first cohort of helpers
- ✓Midst, Raphael and the Presence+ app for the community
- ✓Outcome data on every helping relationship, reported to you
03
Sponsor a mega church or a diocese
A large congregation, a campus system or a diocese bringing STEP to many communities at once.
Sponsor thisAt scale the gift becomes an implementing partnership: several coordinators, formation for hundreds of helpers, Midst running across campuses or parishes with a view across all of them, Emmaus publishing the organization's own formation alongside ours, and licensed clinicians connected through Mindspirit so nobody is discharged into nothing. This is how STEP goes from dozens of communities to thousands, and it is the fastest route to the evidence everyone is waiting for.
- ✓Coordinators and mentors across many communities
- ✓Formation at volume, under the organization's own name if it wants
- ✓The full suite, white-labeled where that helps
- ✓A seat at the table for the independent evaluation
Gifts of any size go to the same four things: formation, coordination, free access for communities, and the independent evaluation. Tell us what you want your gift to do and we will show you what it funds.
What a sponsored community does
A response within eight hours, a trained person at the right level, and feedback that moves care up or down.
What we are trying to achieve
Four things, and we will report on each one.
Self-sustaining by design
Your gift starts something that then pays for itself.
Communities start free. Companions invite and accompany. Some people step up to paid professionals, and professionals and partners subscribe. Paid helpers and partners fund free access for communities, so a sponsored community does not need a second gift to keep going. Bridge funding carries the network to that point.
Honest about the barriers
What we still have to clear, and what your gift has to do with it.
Common-factors research is largely correlational, so we need our own outcome data; the measures are built into every tool. Lay helpers must know their limits, so referral training is in every tier. Communities must be trusted with sensitive information, so the platform is HIPAA-grade and consent comes first. Volunteers burn out, so there are coordinators, mentors and small loads. The top step still depends on scarce clinicians, so the lower steps carry most of the load. And the network is early in revenue, which is where bridge funding comes in.
If this succeeds
What changes in the world.
01
The community a person already belongs to becomes the first door when they struggle, not the emergency room or a waiting list.
02
Ordinary people are trained, supported and trusted to care for one another, and the data shows that it works.
03
Clinicians spend their time on the people who truly need them.
04
Care aims at the flourishing of the whole person, and is understood again as something a community does together.
Talk with us about a gift.
Tell us whether you have a helper, a church or a diocese in mind, or want us to suggest one. We will show you what the first months look like, be plain about where the network is today, and report back on what your gift did.
Presence+ is a program of True Presence, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3). Gifts are deductible to the extent the law allows, and every gift receives a written acknowledgment. Every revenue stream except Mindspirit's practice-management subscriptions flows to the nonprofit.