They're calling around for a counselor. The first place quotes $175 a session. The second, $160. The sliding scale bottoms out at $120. Weekly care at those rates would cost $600 a month or more — and as much as they need that care, that number stands between them and the door. They almost stop looking. Then they find us. Weekly counseling at $30 a visit — no insurance required, no sliding scale with a floor too high to reach. Just a counselor, a consistent time, and a door that was always open. They just needed to know we were here.

They have insurance and they're grateful for it. A $40 copay, counseling covered — they start going weekly and it helps. Then a letter arrives in September telling them they've reached their visit limit for the year. The life raft they've been holding onto just got a little smaller. They could pay $150 out of pocket at their current provider, or wait until January and hope the gap doesn't cost them too much. Or they could come to us — where $30 a visit keeps them going, no insurance required, no visit limits, no arbitrary reset date standing between them and the support they need. IHI isn't here to replace what insurance provides. We're here to make sure that when it isn't enough — and for so many people, it isn't — there is somewhere else to turn.

They've seen three doctors since COVID shifted something in their body. Digestive symptoms, pain that doesn't lift, fatigue that no one has fully explained. A prescription that helps — maybe halfway, on a good day — but no one who can tell them why any of it is happening or what might actually address it. The whole picture remains unexamined. Whole-person, functional care exists. It usually comes with a price tag to match. Not with us.

A mother who arrived in this country with seven children, a history no one should have to survive, and a need for support that touches every part of her life and her family's life. Two of her children have disabilities. She is rebuilding in a place where the language, the systems, and the paperwork are all new — and where the support she needs exists in fragments, held together by an extraordinary network of community partners doing everything they can to reach her.

Organizations like the YWCA, Edmonds Waterfront Center, Verdant Health Commission, Millennia Ministries, Down to Earth Community Gardens, Project Access Northwest, NUHSA, Bastyr University and others in this region are each doing vital, irreplaceable work — and together they are building something alongside the current system.

Not patching what's broken. Building a new kind of boat. IHI is one vessel in that flotilla of interconnected boats.

We go deeper into care of the whole person — the mental, physical, and emotional threads that no single system is resourced or designed to follow all the way through.

Our clients do not always mirror the most extreme cases. These are our neighbors, our coworkers, the people we sit next to at school pickup and pass in the grocery store.

● A nurse who spends every shift holding space for others and can't afford to do the same for themselves.

● A young adult in their first job, uninsured, navigating everything at once.

● An older adult on a fixed income who has been managing alone for years because $120 + a month for weekly counseling simply isn't in the budget.

People who need care — mental health support, whole-person medicine, someone to finally connect the dots — and who face barriers that have nothing to do with how much they want to heal.

This is who we show up for. Every week. Without exception.

This summer, we need our community to show up for us.

The grant landscape has never been more competitive. Organizations that lost federal funding in 2025 are now applying in the same small pool where community nonprofits like ours have always operated. Our two active grants, each under $50,000, are sustaining us — but against an organizational budget of $300,000, that is less than a third of what we need.

Summer is historically our lowest-income season: students transition, schedules shift, and the gap between what care costs and what people can pay widens. We are not in a position to turn anyone away. We are asking you to help us not have to.

At Inside Health Institute we offer counseling starting at $30 a visit — and as low as $20 on Monday mornings at the Edmonds Waterfront Center, where we bring care directly into the community. Naturopathic medicine starts at $60.

We don't contract with insurance — not because insurance doesn't matter, but because removing that intermediary means we answer to our clients, not to a benefits administrator. When insurance can help — with labs, with referrals — we help people use it. But we don't let it decide who gets care or how much.

We quintupled our care capacity during COVID because people needed us to. Capacity has never been our barrier. Funding the gap between what people can pay and what care actually costs — that is the challenge we are asking you to help us meet.

Here's the honest picture:

We have quadrupled our grant applications over the past year. Every grant that funds us matters deeply — and we need more than grants alone to build the kind of sustainability that lets us keep growing our reach.

Give us a fish — and teach us to fish.

🐟 Give us a fish — Your financial gift funds direct care for people who are already showing up and just need the gap closed.

🎣 Teach us to fish — Your connections — to employers with matching programs, to colleagues at companies with community giving funds, to anyone who believes what we believe — those connections open doors that grant applications simply cannot.

Do you work for Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or any company with a giving or matching program? Your employer may match your donation — doubling or tripling its impact. We can't make a cold introduction and have it land. You can. A warm connection from someone they trust changes everything.

Your gift opens the door:

💙 $20 — One Monday EWC counseling visit — care where people already are

🌱 $30 — One counseling visit — what we ask of them, covered by you

🌿 $60 — One naturopathic visit minimum — whole-person care made possible

🌳 $85 — The real cost of one full counseling session

☀️ $170 — Two counseling visits — a beginning and a return

🔆 $180 — The real cost of one full naturopathic visit

💚 $340 — Four visits — a meaningful month of weekly support

💛 $500 — A month of someone's full care, held open by you

💜 $1,000 — Ten people through the door who almost didn't make it

💙 Any amount — Every dollar reaches someone who needs it

We are raising $10,000 right now for direct care. Every dollar goes straight to a real visit with a real person. No overhead, no intermediary. Just care.

And beyond your gift — will you share this campaign?

→ Tell someone about IHI.

→ Forward this page.

Help us reach the people and the resources that can help us reach further.

The care people need exists. The barrier is almost always the same - funding.

Together we can remove this barrier for IHI the way we remove barriers for those we serve.

Inside Health Institute is a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit. EIN 47-4093729. All gifts are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. 7330 NE Bothell Way Suite 202, Kenmore WA 98028 · 425-256-2125 · info@insidehealthinstitute.org · insidehealthinstitute.org

Someone You Know Is Already Waiting

The care people need exists. The barrier is almost always the same. Help us remove it.