Welcoming Mental Health Patients Back Into the World Is a Big Part of the Cure – Clubhouse Movement Gets a Boost

March 2, 2025 journo

(Research and writing contributed by Robby Berman)

A huge donation from MacKenzie Scott is uplifting a unique organization in New York, so they can transform the lives of even more people who’ve struggling through mental health problems.

The former wife of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos delivered a grant of $12 million to the Fountain House as part of her pledge to give away most of her wealth following a divorce in 2019 after 25 years.

The donation will allow Fountain House to expand its impact at a time when mental health is an urgent concern, building on its philosophy that a psychiatric diagnosis is not remotely the sum total of who a patient can be.

By not focusing solely on illness, they are able to profoundly improve a patient’s range of activities, social interactions, and quality of life.

The Fountain House story

In the late 1940s, psychiatric patients at Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York, established a self-help club to provide mutual support. Upon release from Rockland, they sought the same kind of support system, so club members decided to establish a new group on the outside.

They called their club ‘We Are Not Alone,’ or ‘WANA’. The steps of the New York Public Library in New York City served as WANA’s first meeting place, but in 1948, philanthropic women, together with the National Council for Jewish Women, donated funds for the purchase of a permanent home.

They chose a red brick building on West 47th Street in New York City, located in what’s known today as “Hell’s Kitchen.” The building was christened “Fountain House,” owing to the fountain in its courtyard.

While Fountain House provided a welcome meeting place for many ex-patients, it began eventually to lose focus, until 1955, when it hired its first mental health professionals, along with John Beard as executive director, leading to a powerful intersection of psychiatric philosophies.

Beard expanded the facility’s hours and began engaging the skills and enthusiasms of members in its operation. He invited them to help hire staff, maintain the premises, assist with clerical operations, and prepare and serve food for members of the ‘clubhouse’.

As new needs arose, club members were consulted and involved in solutions.
The result was greater engagement on everyone’s part, and close friendships between members and staff. There was a transformative effect, both for the self-image of all the individuals involved and for the organization itself.

Today, Fountain House has about 1,400 active members. It also operates a second location in New York, in the Bronx, with approximately 200 members. (Roughly a third of Fountain House’s members have been homeless at some point in their lives.) Fountain House and its philosophy have also served as a model for the modern Clubhouse movement, with over 300 such facilities operating around the world.

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In fact, Fountain House’s clubhouse model is used by more than 60,000 people with serious mental illness in the U.S, according to Harvard Public Health Magazine.

The current Chairman of the Board, William Hilburn, was surprised and delighted by the $12 million gift from Ms. Scott.

“We are thrilled to be recognized by MacKenzie Scott and have her as part of the network of foundations and individuals that recognize the urgent need to change how we support those most impacted by serious mental illness, and Fountain House’s life-changing work.”

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