HeartSupport started as a person at a table in a music venue.

Jake Luhrs, vocalist of world famous metal band, August Burns Red, would stay after he performed to have conversations with his fans at the merch table. They would open up about the struggles they were facing in life and with their mental health, some for the first time.

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It worked, and music was the key.

Fans would come back the next year and share how they had made it through because of his encouragement. They stopped ideating about suicide, had gotten rid of their drugs, or stopped self-harming.

Venue

Music created a common space that Jake and his fans shared. They would come to a venue to watch his band play, and he would use that venue as a way to reach them.
Music helps people access their feelings; there’s a song for everything we go through. People might not know how to talk about their mental health, but we can all talk about how a song affects us and why.

Table

Jake would find a spare table in the venue, put a HeartSupport table cloth over it, and stay up until 1a, 2a, 3a talking to fans every night.
Jake didn’t have these conversations in a VIP line or ask people to go through his manager. He made it easy for people to find him, approach him, and start conversations. Some people who might not have otherwise opened up did because it was easy.

Person

Drenched in sweat immediately after the show, Jake would hop off stage and head over to the HeartSupport table. He had no mental health credentials but had common interest in music and a willingness to show up for his fans.
Some people may not be willing to talk about their struggles with a therapist but are willing to have conversations with normal people they feel will understand them. Jake didn’t offer advice but focused on listening and offering care and compassion, and it worked.

Fans were struggling without seeking help.

One of the things that struck Jake over time was that many fans were opening up about these deep issues to him without having told anyone else in their life. This is consistent with the statistics we know about mental health - 3 in 5 people who struggle with their mental health do not seek help for their issues. Jake started HeartSupport to reach more of these people and change the statistics.

HeartSupport uses music to start conversations about mental health with people who might not otherwise seek help.

We started with the same blueprint Jake had and used it to help over 50,000 people.

HeartSupport has had many different “venues” over the years. We’d show up and bring our own table and reach people who might not have opened up otherwise.

Festivals & Tours

(1/5) The Tent

In 2013, HeartSupport started attending festivals and traveling on tours across the country.
(2/5) Support Wall

We built a “Support Wall” that was a space where fans could write down the struggles they were facing, and others at the show would come by offer them encouragement.
(3/5) Impact

People would come by at the end of the day and leave in tears because of how much love and compassion they experienced.
(4/5) Results

We’ve traveled over 124,000 miles on 300 tour dates and started 25,000 mental health conversations.
(5/5) Life Change

Through these conversations, people’s lives were changed. They chose life over suicide, stepped away from addictions dumping their alcohol in the parking lot, and found hope for their lives. Photo: Julie 1 year after deciding to choose life over suicide. Watch Julie’s story here.

Social Media

When Covid hit and the world went online, we needed to make a way to bring our “table” to the online “venue”. So we innovated technology that let us go to where the fans were gathering - social media. We added our Support Wall into the comment sections on popular platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and more, and fans could comment about their struggles, and we’d connect them to volunteers who would write the same kind of encouraging replies.

We’ve established over 200 partnerships with bands that have led to over 27,000 mental health conversations through social media.

Lives that have been changed

👇 Testimonials

Someone wrote on an Instagram post: “I fantasize about the end of my life almost daily, and I wish I could articulate why.”
After our reply, they wrote: “thank you for helping me articulate my feelings. It is extremely frustrating to not know “why do you feel this way?” And that is why I rarely talk about it. It is easy to forget that I don’t have to pretend my negative thoughts don’t exist. It normally comes out in the form of morbid humor. I hope you have someone to talk to the same way you responded to me.”
By meeting people where they are, we can reach people who aren’t opening up elsewhere. This person wrote, “I haven’t done anything like this, and past me would have never thought I would do something like this. I keep wanting to reach out to something or someone, but I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone. All my friends don’t even like me or want to talk to me. I feel like I’m alone. I just want it all to end.”
A user originally wrote about losing their father unexpectedly and the grief and guilt they experienced processing the pain. After our replies, the user wrote back, “Holy crap, you nailed everything. Reading this is bringing actual tears of relief and a sense that people get it.”

Join the Team

Rise Against

Tim shared about his anxiety and depression on a collaborative post on Instagram, and we wrote 24 replies to 9 of his fans who opened up.
Parkway Drive

Winston opened up about a low point in his mental health that almost broke up the band. He helped over 17,000 people know they are not alone in their struggles.
Underoath

Aaron shared about his struggle with anxiety and helped 30 of his fans open up about theirs as well. We wrote 73 supportive replies to them.
Motionless in White

Ricky Motionless collaborated on an Instagram post sharing that he had recently been through a low in his life. 68 of his fans wrote about similar struggles they were facing, and we wrote 170 replies to them.
Dance Gavin Dance

Andrew shared a powerful story about his suicidal ideation and journey back to becoming mentally healthy. It’s helped 27,000 people find hope in his story.
The Devil Wears Prada

Mike Hranica shared about his struggle with panic attacks and described it as a looming storm. 10 of his fans related and talked about their struggles with panic. We wrote 27 replies to them.
The Ghost Inside

Andrew Tkaczyk talked about his struggles recovering from having his leg amputated, including suicidal thoughts. 11 of his fans related to his struggles opening up as well. We wrote 25 replies to them.
Fit For A King

Ryan shared about the anxiety he experienced when all touring stopped. 40 of his fans related with their own struggles with anxiety, and we wrote 72 replies to them.
Pop Evil

Pop Evil did a custom shoe giveaway as a band asking their fans to open up about the lies they believe. Over 100 of their fans shared about thoughts of worthlessness and depression. We wrote 275 replies to them.
From Ahses to New

Mat Madiro opened up about loneliness he experiences after tour is over. 35 of his fans related to those struggles of loneliness, and we wrote 89 replies to them.

HeartSupport Fest

Part of the natural evolution of our work with bands to reach their fans and our work in the festival space was to create an event where mental health wasn’t just something that happened in one tent in a sea of other vendors, but something that was saturated through the entire venue.

Our festival was sponsored by an online therapy platform, offering a free month of therapy to all attendees.
Our jumbotrons advertised our anonymous text Support Wall.
Bands shared the importance of mental health from stage.
We listened to stories of hundreds of attendees and gave away free gifts to remind them of their worth.
And we filled our physical Support Wall each day.
We impacted over 11,000 attendees in 2 days.

Location
Orlando, FL

Year
02/18/23 to 02/19/23

Goals

Band Support Forum

Imagine bands owning their own HeartSupport forum. They encourage their fans to open up and support one another, and the bands themselves reply. We want to equip 15 bands with these forums in 2024.

2X Our Forum Replies

We’ve built the ability to get 10k people to open up, but we need to be able to scale our reply teams to support the demand (50k replies).