The year 2025 is coming to a close, a time for reflection on what we’ve achieved together and a moment to look ahead with hope and ambition. The youth mental health crisis continues to challenge families and schools across the country, but thanks to the generosity of donors like you, Erika’s Lighthouse is meeting this challenge with proven, free, life-saving resources.
The Power of Your Impact in 2025
This year, we have seen the incredible results of prioritizing proactive, universal mental health education. Our evidence-informed programs, provided at zero cost to schools everywhere, have reached hundreds of thousands of students.
In fact, the data speaks for itself:
- Over 1 Million Students were impacted during the 2024-2025 school year alone, across 49 states and 26 countries.
- After using our curriculum, 91% of students reported having the information and ability to take care of their own mental health.
- Our programs are working to build a supportive culture where 87% of students would speak to an adult if a friend was talking about suicide or self-harm.
This impact is made possible through our Four Pillar Philosophy: Classroom Education, Empowerment Clubs, Family Engagement, and Policy & Staff Training. These pillars work together, creating a comprehensive safety net that helps drive depression out of the dark and into the light.
Funding Our Future: The Road to 2.5 Million Students
While we celebrate reaching our Vision 2025 goal of impacting 1 million students, the need for free, scalable resources is more urgent than ever. Your year-end donation is not just a gift; it is the fuel for our ambitious and critical future goals.
Our Vision for 2030 is to impact over 2.5 million students.
To achieve this, we must continue to invest in expanding our reach, particularly to underserved Title I schools, and deepen our engagement with every community we serve. This means:
- Scaling our Free Programs: Ensuring our turn-key, easy-to-implement curriculum is available to every educator who needs it, wherever they are.
- Innovating with Data: Expanding the new Data Center to give schools the powerful tools they need to make data-informed decisions and track their mental health progress year-over-year.
- Fostering Peer Leadership: Growing our Empowerment Clubs to promote positive mental health conversations led by young people themselves.
Your financial support before December 31st is vital to securing these next steps. Every single contribution ensures that cost is never a barrier to a student receiving the knowledge and tools they need to care for their mental health.
Your Gift, Defined Impact:
- $50 helps one educator download and implement our complete, high-quality curriculum, reaching an entire classroom of students.
- $250 supports the launch of a new Empowerment Club, giving student leaders the resources to de-stigmatize mental health in their school.
$1,000 helps us onboard a new school partner, providing the school-wide programs necessary to transform their community into a place of hope and acceptance.
As the calendar closes on 2025, please make a choice to empower a generation of students with the skills and confidence to seek help. Give the gift of mental health education. Give the gift of hope.
Your Questions, Answered
Q1: Why is year-end giving so important right now?
Answer: The majority of non-profit giving occurs in December, and your contribution before midnight on December 31st is crucial. It provides the foundational funding we need to plan and launch our programs for the full upcoming school year, ensuring we can sustain our promise to keep every resource 100% free for schools.
Q2: How does Erika’s Lighthouse ensure its programs are effective and safe?
Answer: Our programs are evidence-informed, aligned with best practices (including being an SPRC Approved Program), and designed by mental health and educational experts. We constantly evaluate our impact using pre- and post-program surveys (with 92% of students reporting the program is important and helpful) and utilize our Data Center to help schools measure their progress.
Q3: Is my donation tax-deductible?
Answer: Yes! Erika’s Lighthouse is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your year-end donation is fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, providing an excellent opportunity to reduce your taxable income while making a profound difference in the lives of young people.
