Handing over the organisation I founded, Mental Health Collective

This September, six years after I founded Mental Health Collective C.I.C, I’m delighted to say that I’m handing over the organisation to an incredible team of new Co-Directors – Sarah Nickless, Rich Evans, Babs Viejo, Martin Traverse and Katie Orman. It’s a momentous moment!

For me, it’s like when your child starts at secondary school (which has also happened for me recently). Just like raising a child, creating Mental Health Collective has been both a special thing to do and an ordinary thing to do. I’d like to you tell you a little about how it happened and why I think you, as the person reading this, could potentially do your own version of what I’ve done – in your own way of course.

I founded Mental Health Collective as a response to my own mental health crisis, which I wrote about in my book Polarised and the collection, Breaking Open. To cut a long story short, it was a difficult time. I thought about it a lot and noticed that when people feel like they’re falling apart, they often think that they are alone. I had a conviction that the social and collective dimensions of mental health were crucial and often neglected, so I founded Mental Health Collective with a mission to create new ways of coming together.

With the support of a small team (thank you especially to Cal Strode, Antonis Kousoulis and Anna Wurhurst!) we piloted a few different projects in the early years. Funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the National Lottery and CriSeren enabled us to test innovations that were lovely, fun and impactful, and also (we soon discovered) didn’t have a model for sustainability in the long term.

But then came our flagship project, #KindnessByPost. #KindnessByPost is a nationwide random acts of kindness exchange where you can sign up to send a card or a letter of goodwill, and have someone allocated to send a card or letter to you.

The idea for #KindnessByPost came to me for two reasons: Firstly, because when I had been at my most unwell, a stranger had sent me a card that meant a lot, and secondly because when I’d been in hospital, my peers had offered acts of kindness to each other despite being seriously unwell themselves, and gained a sense of self-esteem and empowerment from doing so. I had experienced first-hand the power of giving and receiving a small gesture of goodwill, and the fact that – when you need a message to hold onto – it makes an enormous difference to physically hold the message in your hands. I noticed that a second-class stamp enables people to send a letter to and from any UK postal address for the same price, so I started working out how to build a kindness exchange on a national level. ??

Today, #KindnessByPost is the UK’s leading random acts of kindness exchange. People have registered to take part nearly 25,000 times, and several times a year people from all over the UK send beautiful cards and letters that crisscross the country with messages of kindness and hope. Successive independent studies from University College London have found that it can work to improve mental health for participants, reduce loneliness and improve wellbeing. We’ve been featured widely in the media, including on Channel 5 News, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio London, in the Metro, Evening Standard and I Newspaper, and have an amazing community with hundreds of participants who take part time after time.

We’ve run these exchanges for many years but despite knowing what to expect, something magical always seems to happen. People send gorgeous messages: From simple cards withgood wishes and positivity to affirmations and cheesy puns, yummy recipes, book suggestions, even a favourite mathematical equation (yes really!). Every card is as unique as the person sending it. Frequently we hear of a card landing on someone’s doorstep on just the day that they needed it, with the message resonating with the recipient in an uncannily powerful way. The thousands of people who participate in #KindnessByPost have created a nationwide movement for connection and hope – and we know this because people regularly tell us that taking part has been a moving experience them.

#KindnessByPost would not exist were it not for the generous support of our technology partner, OpenCredo. Working pro-bono, OpenCredo built us a technology platform that is essentially a ‘wave machine’ for random acts of kindness. The platform allows us to facilitate nationwide exchanges at scale. Their team, and especially Nicki Watt, James Bowkett and Stuart Wallace, were instrumental in turning #KindnessByPost from an idea into a reality. Thanks in large part to the stability of the platform they built, our marginal and running costs are low enough that #KindnessByPost can be self-sustaining in the long term.

I was able to start Mental Health Collective for a number of reasons. Our family have financial safety nets which meant we could weather the risks involved with me becoming a social entrepreneur. My education and professional experience gave me useful knowledge and skills. Being a white middle-class woman made it easier to develop a ‘can-do’ attitude and prediliction for audacity because I don’t face as much discrimination as some others do. Over the years, I’ve learnt how to take difficult things, think deeply about them, and come up with creative ways to solve problems and bring other people with me on a journey. For me, being given the ‘difficult thing’ of a mental health crisis, was sort of like being given the raw materials to do what I do best.

Thanks to the actions of tens of thousands of people, #KindnessByPost became an idea that took on a life of its own. I nurtured it, and now I couldn’t be happier that it has grown up and come to Sarah, Rich, Babs, Martin and Katie to live its next chapter. They are already channeling new creativity, breathing new life into #KindnessByPost and taking it forward in beautiful ways. I’m astonished that we’ve been able to find such a wonderful group of Co-Directors – it’s as surprising and delightful as the #KindnessByPost cards that fall on people’s doorsteps. I have no doubt that Mental Health Collective will flourish in their hands. ??

Stepping back from all the details though, what really happened with Mental Health Collective was that I answered a calling.

I realised that there was something meaningful I personally could do in my life, and then I did it. We all have a version of this because callings can come to anyone (the hard part, in my experience, is noticing them). You might be called to do a big thing or a little thing; an ordinary thing or an extraordinary thing. It’s just about noticing that you have something to offer and then giving yourself permission to offer it in real life.

Whoever you are reading this, I hope you feel able to listen out for that sense of what you can offer – to realise something that you could personally do in your life that would be meaningful to you or to others.

If you can’t hear anything or you’re waiting for a calling and want something fun to do in the meanwhile, I’d like to point out that registrations for Autumn #KindnessByPost are now open! We are literally calling you right now! People from across the UK will be exchanging kindness in the post this Autumn – you are warmly welcome to sign-up and join us ??.

(10th September 2024)