Grants
Our Path Forward – a deeper dive into our selection process.
Walking Each Other Home: Upholding the Highest Standards of Grant Review: Healing Hearts, Changing Minds is committed to the highest standards of ethics, safety, and transparency in philanthropy.
For our 2025 grant round, Walking Each Other Home, 59 proposals were first screened for eligibility, then assigned to six expert reviewers in psychedelic end-of-life care, with conflicts of interest disclosed to ensure impartiality. Each proposal was reviewed by two independent experts using a scoring rubric that assesses the criteria as established in the RFP and alignment to HHCM’s values of compassion, integrity, and community empowerment.
Scores were calibrated to ensure comparability across reviews, and top proposals advance to a final deliberation round where reviewer insights and budget considerations inform grant award decisions. This process reflects HHCM’s mission to ignite bold, compassionate solutions and to conduct all grantmaking with integrity, transparency, and fairness.
Our Broader Vision for End–of–Life Psychedelic Care
For decades, the exploration of psychedelic-assisted therapy in end-of-life care has illuminated some of the most profound aspects of our shared human experience.
These therapies have emerged as a source of hope, offering comfort to those facing cancer-related anxiety and easing the heavy burden of existential distress. They have the potential to help individuals find deeper meaning and serenity in their final days.
Through our initiative, Walking Each Other Home, HHCM is dedicated to fostering a compassionate approach to end-of-life care. We strive to create a space where we can honor and support those at life’s threshold, helping them navigate this deeply personal journey with dignity and grace.
Walking Each Other Home: A Fund to Promote Psychedelic Compassion for End–of–Life Care
Our team has had the privilege of speaking with more than 20 dedicated leaders in end-of-life care and consciousness. These compassionate individuals include palliative care physicians, nurses, death doulas, clergy members, academics, researchers, cancer survivors, storytellers, advocates for the right to try, nonprofit leaders, those with near-death experiences, donors, spiritual guides, and advocates for psychedelic safety.
Through these meaningful conversations, we have come to understand the profound needs and opportunities that exist in this field.
As a result, we developed a comprehensive request for proposals (RFP) that aimed to address the critical insights shared by these remarkable frontline leaders, ultimately enhancing the care and support available to individuals during this pivotal stage of life.
In homage to Ram Dass, we named this $500,000 funding round Walking Each Other Home: A Fund to Promote Psychedelic Compassion for End-of-Life Care.
The 2025 grant application window is now closed.
Walking Each Other Home Grantees
End of Life Psychedelic Care
$75,025 Awarded
End of Life Psychedelic Care will help deliver home-based ketamine therapy integrated with spiritual care for hospice and palliative-care patients.
The pilot brings together psychedelic-assisted therapy with support from doulas and chaplains, recognizing the mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of people with life-threatening or terminal illnesses.
The program seeks to help people approach death as a universal human journey and connect those interested in psychedelic end-of-life care with trained professionals.
Heal Ukraine Trauma
$46,130 Awarded
The war in Ukraine has created an enormous and growing mental health crisis for veterans and their families.
With support from HHCM, Heal Ukraine Trauma will expand trauma-informed group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy training and services for people affected by the physical and emotional consequences of war.
The project will support veterans and their families while expanding access to new models of trauma care.
Institute for Rural Psychedelic Care
$87,700 Awarded
The Institute for Rural Psychedelic Care will provide ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and narrative medicine programs for terminally ill patients in rural communities.
Participating patients will have opportunities to reflect on their lives through open-ended, filmed conversations designed to support meaning, legacy, and closure.
By combining psychedelic-assisted care and narrative medicine, the project seeks to reduce anxiety while helping patients and their families preserve stories, experiences, and connections that remain meaningful at the end of life.
Mayo Clinic
$82,405.70 Awarded
The Mayo Clinic will undertake its first clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for patients with brain tumors and existential distress.
Brain tumor diagnoses, particularly those involving cancers with poor prognoses, can cause severe anxiety and emotional distress.
This study will explore psilocybin-assisted therapy within a supportive, home-like research environment as part of Mayo Clinic’s integrative approach to oncology.
Research findings are expected to contribute to the growing body of knowledge available to medical, mental health, hospice, and palliative-care professionals.
PRATI and Pravan Foundation
$75,000 Awarded
This project will train 20 hospice workers, palliative-care providers, and doulas to deliver psychedelic-assisted therapy for existential distress in Puerto Rico.
The program expands PRATI’s psychedelic-assisted therapy training in partnership with the Puerto Rico-based Pravan Foundation.
By preparing professionals already involved in hospice and palliative care, the project seeks to strengthen the local network of people equipped to support patients facing serious illness and end-of-life concerns.
Red Willow Hospice
$100,000 Awarded
Red Willow Hospice serves rural communities across Northern New Mexico and takes a holistic approach to the mental, physical, and spiritual needs of its patients.
With HHCM funding, Red Willow will train hospice staff and begin providing ketamine-assisted psychotherapy to terminally ill patients.
The project seeks to expand access to psychedelic-assisted care beyond major health care centers and large cities.
Red Willow also plans to use storytelling and shared experiences to educate others and help normalize thoughtful conversations about psychedelics and end-of-life care.
University of Washington Medicine
$100,000 Awarded
The University of Washington Medicine will study a group-based model of psilocybin therapy for people experiencing cancer-related anxiety and depression.
Participants will take part in a supported retreat experience in a natural setting, with a multidisciplinary team available throughout treatment.
The project will explore whether group psilocybin therapy can provide an effective and more cost-conscious model of care when compared with individual treatment.
Research findings will be shared with professionals involved in palliative and hospice care.
Building on Our Previous Grantmaking
In 2024, Healing Hearts, Changing Minds awarded more than $500,000 to six nonprofit partners and allied organizations working to expand culturally responsive psychedelic-assisted care and support. These projects focused particularly on communities that have historically faced barriers to care, including LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities, veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress, and people unable to afford psychedelic-assisted treatment.
Our partners included SafeHouse 7 – Access To Doorways, Flourish, Heroic Hearts Project, the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, Integrate, and Naropa University. And that work reinforced our belief in listening closely to communities, identifying unmet needs, and supporting organizations already positioned to create meaningful change.
Walking Each Other Home continues that work by focusing attention on the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted end-of-life care.