HeartSupport at work: how one volunteer leveraged his company to build mental health community
“Just be curious! If HeartSupport is important to you and you want to make a difference for the people who HeartSupport is supporting, be curious about how.”
With the support of the Access Foundation, his employer’s charitable arm, longtime HeartSupport advocate Andy French has achieved something truly remarkable: secured a major one time grant to fund HeartSupport, and then had HeartSupport selected as the company’s North America charity of the year.
But if you ask Andy about it, he’s quick to make it clear that though his process has been the first of its kind, it won’t be the last. Others can have the exact same impact by making use of their workplaces too.
Discovering an opportunity
Andy himself has long had music inextricably interwoven with his mental health story, which has led to a long history with HeartSupport. When his company was acquired by the global software giant Access, he heard about their charitable arm during onboarding.
“It was Access’s way of giving back to the community, building communities, doing so through employees,” he explains. “The grant program wasn’t established yet in the U.S. I went through the process as the very first U.S. employee to navigate a charity grant. It was awarded in November of 2024. After that, the Access Foundation asked if I wanted to be the U.S. ambassador for the Access Foundation to start tall the charity-related stuff in the United States.”
That included founding a committee called the Giving Back Champions, a group that meets to democratically select a charity of the year for each fiscal year (which runs from July through June for the Access Group). The learning curve was steep, but Andy was committed to it. He spoke to mentors, learned from U.K. team members, and figured out how to launch the program on his own turf.
Throughout the U.S., about thirty charities were nominated. Andy had already been naturally working HeartSupport and their values into daily conversations, especially since they took home the grant.
“I have personified HeartSupport with the people I interact with. I told them voting would mean the world to me,” Andy explains earnestly.
His role as ambassador worked. HeartSupport was democratically elected as the charity of the year for the Access Foundation in North America.
HeartSupport launches as Access Foundation’s charity of the year
Their selection meant that immediately, Access invested over $40,000 into on-the-ground festival deployments — deployments that changed thousands of lives. Every dollar allowed HeartSupport to show up and foster an inclusive, unconditionally compassionate space for metal fans to offer each other care.
But it didn’t stop there. The Access Foundation’s charity of the year initiative isn’t just about outwardly directing funds — it’s about internalizing the mission of the organizations they serve. And no one could be more committed to that value than Andy.
In early September, Access had a kick-off event in partnership with HeartSupport to establish their term as charity of the year. About 280 staff members attended remotely from all over the country, while about twenty people filled the office space in Albany, New York. HeartSupport’s Executive Director Nate Hilpert joined the virtual space to share about HeartSupport’s mission. And Bryce Maopolski, HeartSupport’s Development Associate, was actually in the room.
Andy remembers the day as a pinnacle of what he has managed to achieve by bringing HeartSupport’s mission and his employment together.
“The most immediate and most incredible feedback was during that kick-off that we did,” Andy says. “After the meeting, we had organized pizza for people in the office. We were hanging out, discussing what we had just met about. Bryce was in the room. In that presentation, we’d heard what HeartSupport is. We had someone like Nate, who was also sharing in his description his own personal experiences and the challenges he’s gone through. It registered in that conference room, in this corporate space, and suddenly, we’re talking about mental health. Everyone was sharing about things personally, or with people who matter to them. My boss shared about her father, who always wanted to do music but was set back, and how that’s impacted her. How her own daughter goes through struggles. A couple of other people chimed in, saying, ‘I went through these things, I’m really happy I had people to lift me out of that.’”
Andy continues, “In corporate America, one of the greatest faux pas is to discuss mental illness and stories of trauma. But in that room, after that meeting, my coworkers, my team, suddenly started talking about that. That has strengthened my team’s bond. This has helped us work better together. It’s a positive feedback loop.”
Changing the workplace culture
That strong start has led to real change. Fundraising as a staff is also a part of the charity of the year process, with the Access Foundation promising to match anything the team raises. Andy and his Giving Back Champions set a cautious goal of $10,000 that they hoped to raise in a year.
On Giving Tuesday, not even halfway through HeartSupport’s year as the charity of choice, they blew past that $10,000 goal.
Now, Andy’s hoping for $20,000.
But his goals also transcend the simply monetary: he’s hoping to continue being a part of a cultural movement, changing his own workplace while encouraging others to do the same. The potential has become clear through high stressors in the work environment in recent months, growing pains and turnover that have left multiple staff members hitting their breaking points.
“Then enter HeartSupport again. Having a very open and raw conversation at a critical moment of many of our stresses, bringing up, ‘hey, we’ve all been through the darkest times of our lives before. We’ve gone through challenges that seemed like they could break us before, and we’re here: we did it.’ When we have each other, we can get through this. We can make this better for everybody,” Andy says.
“That wasn’t me. That was HeartSupport,” he’s quick to add. “All of my coworkers were exposed to that through the kickoff and the constant conversation about what HeartSupport is. What HeartSupport stands for also works in the workplace: we can do this together, because I’m not alone.”
It’s your turn: bring HeartSupport to work
Through his willingness to show up, ask questions, knock on doors, and be persistent and patient, Andy has transformed his workplace into a community of advocates who show up to their jobs wholeheartedly instead of stuffing down their feelings. Andy has personally benefitted from the shift, and he’s hoping it’s contagious.
“I hope that through this process, HeartSupport’s ideology, the ethos, what it helps people with, what it stands for, can be implemented into my company. From personal experience, a couple of weeks ago, I reached cognitive burnout. I snapped. I took the rest of the day off, the next day off, and did self-care and mental health things. I have been able to feel comfortable enough with my core team to say, ‘Hey, this is what happened, this is why it happened. I’m not feeling my best, but I’m going to do what I can.’”
He adds, “And they’ve said, ‘Hey, I also snapped earlier this week. I know how it goes. Let me know if you need anything.’ This has enabled me to give myself that grace, and I ended up returning the following week almost at 100% because I have a good crew around me that can understand me. That’s my goal: for corporate America to function like HeartSupport does.”
Many big companies have charitable programs like the Access Foundation. Andy urges others to take advantage of them, whether it’s as simple as seeing if your employer will match your donation to HeartSupport or as big as finding out if they also have a charitable grant program. Although he doesn’t pretend he always knew the way forward, he is adamant that it’s been worth it, and that others can follow in his footsteps if they do so with curiosity and a love for HeartSupport’s mission.
“People want to help people,” Andy concludes simply. “So many of us don’t know where to find the opportunities to do something good for somebody else. One of the cooestl things is on the tracker for the charity of the year donations, it shows how many people it’s going to help based on the amount. It’s a reminder that not only can we be there for each other, the contributions, the effort, the energy that’s put into raising money for something like HeartSupport? You’re making a difference in about 2,000 people’s lives. Knowing that you’re making a difference in someone’s life is a really big thing in this whole equation.”
That sense of purpose is priceless.
If you want to donate today, ask your employer if they might be able to match your gift. If you know your organization has a philanthropic component, visit heartsupport.com/partners to contact us about taking the next steps.
