06/18/2025
Horses for Mental Health just announced their wrap-up for the Campaign 2025, and within that message is the news that Red Horse Center raised over $626,400.00!
Yeah. It’s not a typo, our little nonprofit that could, just received over six hundred thousand dollars in community support!
We can hardly believe it either!
We shared some thoughts through Horses for Mental Health on how this support drive and significant gift serve as a pivotal “ARCH Moment” in the Red Horse Story. We’ll share those links and start a conversation here as well.
The financial impact of this support drive and the story-changing donation is bewildering. It will significantly expand the resources, emotional safety, and healing we can offer to both our human and equine communities. Even more powerful than the money, however, is the feeling of shared vision and the message of encouraging support – that what we’re doing matters to our community.
In short, after a long and difficult five years as a pandemic-starved startup nonprofit, this is an emotion-filled investment in our mission and vision that is almost indescribable. We’ll start with sharing our immense gratitude to everyone who has been a character in our story up to this point. Our community includes clients, volunteers, donors, sponsors, friends, vendors, colleagues, horses, dogs, and cats. It is simultaneously local and global. Everyone has helped us shape our message by walking along with us, until the walking path felt clear and familiar, worn by millions of small steps made with intention and heart. We believe this shared path is what invites people to join our herd and feel safe and warmth for sharing their story, their voice, and support.
Our herd, and our path invited an amazing supporter to join our story.
In early May, a supporter of ours sat with us to talk about our plans for the future and some of the challenges we are facing as an organization. It was a delightful conversation filled with curiosity and good intentions. Before that conversation was over, this generous donor pledged over half a million dollars to help Red Horse pursue our mission and vision. It was a stunning experience, to say the least, and perhaps the most remarkable part, is that it never really felt like a conversation about money. It felt like an expression of love and trust mixed with creative problem-solving.
We’re holding off on sharing certain aspects of this particular story, which is an intentional choice, as we hold space and allow time for some behind-the-scenes elements to unfold naturally to their completion. We are deep in a process of exploring what’s next and how these gifts can have the highest purpose for our mission and community. We’ll share more about the donor, specific purpose, and outcomes when the time is right, but in the meantime, the next gift we can give each other is a mutual rooting interest for the best outcomes through a unique and developing process. (At the same time, we apologize for the “vague-booking”, but we appreciate your understanding…
This outcome we’re celebrating is the result of the generosity and support of others, who gave their time, heart, and dollars. It also feels like an incredible reflection of our intentions behind renaming our fundraising team to “The Giving Team” and restructuring our network of volunteers, donors, and sponsors into “The Giving Circle” a little more than one year ago.
The Red Horse Giving Circle reflects our desire to focus on growing our circle in a mindful way that invites support, which includes financial donations, while not equating dollars and tiers to the value or worth of individuals. It is interesting terrain, worthy of our attention, and part of our ongoing paradigm shift to an equitable and collaborative mindset. We have found it has a very positive and grounding impact both in language and perspective, while we never imagined an announcement like this was on the horizon.
We’re elated to share the big news, and our sincere gratitude for the support through our most dramatically successful support drive, EVER.
Thank you to the greater Red Horse Herd, near and far – you are our everything.
