Shrink Rappers Set Bar High for NAMI Walks

4/24: $250 ~ 4/25: $295 ~ 4/28: $330

Click on image to donate!
See which Shrink Rapper has attracted the most donations.
4/28 (7%): thank you, Carol!
4/25 (6%): thank you Christina, Jesse, Abhishek!

The National Alliance on Mental Illness is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. They provide education and training programs for consumers, family members, providers, and the general public. Their Family-to-family and Peer-to-peer programs have won awards for providing education, insight, and support to people and families affected by mental health problems. They have hundreds of state and local affiliate organizations to provide grassroots support to communities.

NAMIWalks, NAMI's annual fundraiser, raised charitable contributions to support their work. The Shrink Rappers are working to raise money for the NAMIWalks fundraiser on May 19 at the Baltimore Inner Harbor. All of the money goes to support the Anne Arundel County NAMI affiliate. We did this last year 3 days before the event and managed to still raise $750. We're shooting for $5000 this year.

Anne Arundel county has a population of 588,000 people. Anne Arundel county has 14 psychiatric beds to treat the portion of that 588,000 who require intensive inpatient psychiatric treatment. That comes to 2.4 inpatient beds per 100,000 people. The average number of psychiatric beds in the U.S. is 36 per 100,000 (most recently available data; see other psych beds posts for details). The average number of psychiatric beds in Africa is 3.4 beds per 100,000 population. Anne Arundel county has fewer inpatient resources per capita than Africa. They need our help.

So... I'm asking our dear readers to help out and pitch in. In the last month, we've had 22,000 unique visitors. If only one-fourth of you Shrink Rap visitors gave $1 to our fund-raising campaign, we'd have $5000 for the Anne Arundel county NAMI chapter, which they can put to good use. Please consider clicking the picture above to donate to this cause. Give $1, $10, $25, $50, or even $100... whatever you can. And it's all tax-deductible. (4/25: Sarebear said it won't take less than $10.)

To really sweeten the deal, we will give an autographed copy of our book to any person or organization that donates $250 or more. (Yeah, I know, big deal. Still, it's a token of our appreciation.)

And, if we manage to get any SUPER donations of $1000 or more (!!), we will place an image of your choice (tasteful only) for one month in a prominent place on our blog to celebrate your generous donation (or to advertise your organization), including a link back to your website, as well as four signed copies of our book. Note that we get about 40,000 page views and over 20,000 unique visitors per month -- that's ~2.5 cents per impression! (If we get more than one of these donations, we'll give each one it's own month, in order of receipt of donation, starting with June.)

"Roy, you've talked me into it. Enough already; where do I click!?"

Click right HERE to take you to our team donation page.  Or click on the image at the top of the post. I will change this image daily to update the progress you are making. You will be able to choose which Shrink Rapper you want to honor with your donation (a little friendly shrink competition).

I'll throw in one more thing. Whomever donates the most will get to also have a Guest Post on Shrink Rap, and we'll bring you on as a guest on our podcast, My Three Shrinks. (Can you tell I listen to a lot of public radio?)

Thank you for considering this worthy cause.
~Roy out.

PS: You can also JOIN our Shrink Rappers Team and raise funds yourself. We have room for 27 more "walkers", and you can either walk in person on May 19, or just in spirit (you don't have to be present to raise money, but I must tell you that Clink will be out of town, and Dinah is at best a maybe).