Funding & partners
Behind The 22 draws on a diverse mix of funding. The people we serve never pay. And no funder gets to decide what our evidence says.
Funding & how we operate
Every service Behind The 22 provides to individuals and families — the screeners, the BT22 Profile, case review, advocacy support, research — is free, and will stay free. We will never ask the people we serve for money.
Individuals and families never pay for the screeners, the BT22 Profile, case review, advocacy support, or research. Funding comes from the sources on this page.
Federal research and suicide-prevention programs, foundations, individual donors, corporate and in-kind support, university partnerships, and subscriptions from organizations that use our advanced tools. We’re in the process of getting our nonprofit status.
Our paid team is drawn from people touched by suicide or institutional harm, and supported by volunteers. We pay them well and train them to build their own micro-businesses, so more people working on these systems know what it’s like when they fail.
Staying lean is part of the goal. We want to prove that reducing harm doesn’t require the enormous overhead most people assume it does, and that a small, independent organization can hold real institutions accountable to real evidence.
Where we are
Until it’s granted, some funders can’t give to us directly, so we’re building partnerships with universities and established organizations, and some funders will come later once we have an operating history. We’ll update this page as that changes, including what it means for donors.
Where funding comes from
Our strategy is not to ask one funder to pay for everything. We package the work into programs, and keep a shared core — the same evidence and governance standards — underneath all of them. Suicide prevention is one major lane, alongside neurotrauma research, first-responder occupational health, open science, and services for veterans and families.
| Lane | Who we’re approaching |
|---|---|
| Federal research | DoD Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (traumatic brain injury research); NIH — National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; NIH — National Institute of Mental Health; CDC/NIOSH (occupational safety and health, including first responders); NSF (open science and data infrastructure). |
| Federal service & suicide prevention | VA suicide prevention grant programs (community-based veteran suicide prevention, navigation, and postvention); DOJ COPS law-enforcement mental health and wellness programs. |
| Private foundations | Bob Woodruff Foundation; Wounded Warrior Project; DAV Charitable Service Trust; Arnold Ventures; the Elizabeth Dole Foundation network; local community foundations; health-conversion foundations; family foundations. |
| Individual donors | Major individual donors and donor-advised funds. |
| Corporate & in-kind | Technology and cloud companies; defense and aerospace companies; healthcare and medical companies. Always under our independence rules. |
| Universities & medical centers | Sponsored research and subaward partnerships with research universities and academic medical centers. |
Listing a funder or program here means we are pursuing or watching it. It does not mean they have funded, endorsed, or partnered with us. Funders have their own eligibility rules, and each opportunity is re-checked at application time.
Organization subscriptions · Planned
Organizations that use the Universal Case Manager will be able to subscribe to advanced tools that improve how their own team works internally. Those tools don’t change how you interact with the person whose profile you’re working in. More for organizations.
Working from whatever a person or family shares with you is free. Expanded tools are for professionals who work with more than one profile every day.
What we ask funders to support
Each package is something a funder can fund on its own, built on the same infrastructure.
The funder packet
Funders and partners can request our packet. It’s meant to let a funder see exactly what we’d do with their support, and what we won’t let it change. Email research@behindthe22.com.
What gifts make possible
| Level | Fund | What it makes possible |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | Records Access Fund | Helps obtain, organize, and preserve records for a participating family or case. |
| $5,000 | Family Reconstruction Sponsor | Supports analyst time for a complex, longitudinal case reconstruction. |
| $10,000 | Postvention & Survivor Support Fund | Supports family navigation, post-death records, and learning pathways. |
| $25,000 | Research Cohort Builder | Supports secure intake, records processing, quality assurance, and cohort development. |
| $50,000 | Open Evidence Commons Builder | Supports public source indexing, provenance, methods, and open access. |
| $100,000 | Neurotrauma Research Catalyst | Supports pilot research, expert review, and university collaboration. |
| $250,000+ | Founding Systems Partner | Flexible support across research infrastructure and corrective-control development, under independence terms. |
These are illustrative giving levels. Every gift is held to our independence rules. We’re still in the process of getting our nonprofit status, so we’re not yet accepting online donations. We’ll post when that changes, including whether gifts are tax-deductible.
Corporate & in-kind support
No access to anyone’s protected data, no influence on our research, and no editorial control over what we publish.
Partners
Much of our research will be done with partners who bring the scientific leadership, clinical expertise, and institutional capacity we need.
Independence
No pay-to-target. No pay-to-bury. A data firewall. Publication rights. Disclosure. Read all nine rules in full.
Want to fund or partner with us? Tell us about your organization and what you’re interested in. We’ll send the packet.
