One Mind at Work Advances Mental Health Initiatives

In December 2023, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation awarded a $400,000 grant to One Mind at Work (OMAW) from the foundation’s Mental Health and Well-Being giving area. This grant will support OMAW’s goal to help build mentally healthy cultures, specifically in nonprofit workplaces.

OMAW has a mission to create healthier workplaces for all and represents a movement of global business leaders committed to making a difference. Partnering with leading companies in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, technology, financial services and hospitality, OMAW helps business leaders drive change within their organizations and become advocates for prioritizing mental health in the workplace and among their peers. OMAW members make long-term commitments to promoting workplace mental health, improving access to treatment and preventative services and to creating cultures that support education and awareness.

This grant was a priority for the foundation because the nonprofit sector is very unique as it relates to workplace mental health. Even large global nonprofits tend to be much smaller than typical OMAW members, which have several thousand employees. Issues of size, scale and purchasing power present challenges related to mental health benefits and services. In most cases, there is a great deal of pressure to secure funding to maintain and grow programs, and in many nonprofit organizations the workforce is dealing with difficult issues and is exposed to secondary trauma through their daily work.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed interest and commitment to supporting the mental health of the workforce, and many organizations rallied around this work as a strategic priority. As the world moves beyond the pandemic, organizations need to continue or increase this focus and level of commitment to workforce mental health programs and strategies. The priority for OMAW is ensuring that their members continue to be well-positioned to advocate for ongoing investment that produces measurable impact for employees and their families. 

OMAW partnered with world-class researchers and practitioners to take an evidence-based approach to workplace mental health in building the Mental Health at Work Index, a tool that creates a baseline for how mature an organization’s mental health programs and strategies are, and provides participants with a customized list of recommendations, priorities and practical resources to advance those efforts.

“We are so grateful to the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and we’re committed to translating what we’re learning from our corporate members through the Mental Health at Work Index to nonprofit organizations,” said Christina McCarthy, Executive Director, One Mind at Work. “Many of the challenges will be similar, but the solutions will likely look quite different, and this funding enables us to dedicate time and resources to thinking creatively about where and how we build on our current model in a way that still leads to measurable impact.”

The innovation and experimentation that is happening globally when it comes to workplace mental health initiatives is producing positive results, and OMAW is doing its part to accelerate impact and share innovations with the broader business and nonprofit community while building the future of workplace mental health.