Us 2 Behavioral Health Care, Inc. is an Appleton nonprofit whose mission is to advance health equity by removing barriers and creating an inclusive community where people can reach their full potential. Pictured: Sheng Lee Yang, MSW, LCSW, executive director, and Kou Yang, director of operations and finance

By Kou Yang, director of operations and finance, Us 2 Behavioral Health Care – Appleton

As a start-up nonprofit focused on advancing health equity, my team and I at Us 2 Behavioral Health Care, Inc. discovered that very few people were initially interested in investing in us. The most powerful thing that the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region did in the beginning was listen. The organization proactively reached out to learn about our mission, our vision, our passion and our strategy.

From there, the Community Foundation challenged our clinic’s business model in a constructive way, which ultimately contributed to improvements in our organizational road map. Then, they invested in us. Thanks to four grants, our clinic grew from being an office with one therapy room, a couch, a pair of laptops, a plan and a ton of passion to now include eight office work spaces, seven employees, a doctor collaborator and a nurse practitioner, all under one roof.

Sheng Lee Yang, MSW, LCSW, executive director of Us 2 Behavioral Health Care in Appleton

At Us 2, we’re incredibly grateful we can deploy the right resources in the right places at the right time, furthering our work to fight the root causes of poverty, provide therapy and counseling services to underserved members in the community, and accelerate social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in a systematic way. We do this using a two-pronged micro- and macro-level strategy that addresses these community issues, an approach that would not be possible without the support, funding and guidance of the Community Foundation.

The progressive nature in how quickly the Community Foundation pivoted during COVID-19 and helped to direct funds to ensure that Us 2, and other essential nonprofits, sustained during the pandemic has been amazing to be a part of. Thank you, Community Foundation team, for being progressive big thinkers and visionaries for modern philanthropy.

Click here to watch Kou explain what the Community Foundation means to Us 2 Behavioral Health. Learn more at us2behavioralhealthcare.com.

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