Founded in 2016, teen mental health nonprofit BaMidbar launched as a wilderness retreat in the Colorado Rockies and expanded in the last decade, adding professional development programs, mental health and addiction awareness workshops, a fellowship and a Boston office for in-person and online therapy. The goal was to go national, and it seemed its expansion was cruising forward as it added a teen and young adult advisory committee in March, but in September the organization abruptly announced that it was shuttering.

On Tuesday, weeks after letting the organization’s final employee go, BaMidbar fulfilled its goal, ensuring a continued national presence as the Jewish Federations of North America announced the acquisition of both BaMidbar and The Blue Dove Foundation, which was founded in 2018 as a tiny volunteer-run mental health nonprofit in Atlanta. Both organizations will be integrated into the federation’s BeWell initiative, which helps communities support the mental health of teens and young adults ages 12-26.

BaMidbar was described as a victim of its own success, raising awareness about the importance of mental health at a time when larger organizations were not focused on it, only to find itself struggling to raise money for its activities once those larger groups entered the field. On the other hand, Blue Dove said that it was financially secure and saw the acquisition by BeWell as an opportunity to amplify its impact. 

Indeed, a lot has changed since both organizations launched: the world suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessed the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, and with these experiences, there was an increased awareness of the importance of mental health. BeWell was born in 2022 at a time when people were isolated due to the pandemic.

“We were calling it a [mental health] crisis in ‘22,” Shira Hutt, executive vice president of the Jewish Federations of North America, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “I don’t know what the next level up is from crisis, but the needs are great.”

The Oct. 7 massacres in Israel only deepened the Jewish community’s mental health needs, but, luckily, Hutt said, many communities were prepared to serve individuals thanks to BeWell’s work in their communities. These needs are not going away, she said, especially after Sunday’s deadly terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia.

“The fact that we have the opportunity to not only continue to invest in the BeWell initiative, but now to bolster it, and in many ways streamline this effort with both Blue Dove and BaMidbar joining BeWell is a really important effort,” Hutt said.

Blue Dove and BaMidbar have been partners with BeWell since the initiative’s launch, serving as part of BeWell’s Resiliency Roundtables in local communities, which brought together local federations, community organizations, Jewish human service agencies and community members to brainstorm and implement ways to support the youth.

Today, caring for mental health is not only normalized in Jewish communities, Hutt said, it’s prioritized. But as interest in mental health ascended, funding for smaller mental health programs dried up post-Oct. 7, as communal money poured into other initiatives, particularly those focused on combating antisemitism.

“We went through a thoughtful process where I reached out to about five organizations to see if they would be interested [in acquiring BaMidbar],” former BaMidbar CEO Whitney Fisch, who is now chief program officer at the Mayerson JCC in Cincinnati, told eJP. “I thought I would have to sell them on it, and all five were very much like, ‘Yes, let’s do this.’ It really is a testament to the organization.”

When deciding which organization would obtain BaMidbar’s intellectual property, Fisch and the BaMidbar board sought a mission-aligned organization with a national reach that was financially secure and would be accessible to all Jews. JFNA fit the bill.

The federation absorbed BaMidbar’s mental health awareness and psycho-educational resources, not its clinical practices, as the federation partners with the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, which provides therapy. BaMidbar’s Boston offices are closed. All employees were let go, with Fisch ending her position at the end of November. JFNA also absorbed Blue Dove’s programming, including its workshops and educational resources, and retained three Blue Dove employees. Although the acquisition of Blue Dove was just announced, Blue Dove employees became federation employees at the beginning of May.

“The power of this partnership lies in our shared mission and complementary strengths. The Blue Dove Foundation brings over seven years of Jewish mental health and wellness content, grounded in lived experience and community engagement. BeWell offers an extraordinary national platform and reach,” Justin Milrad, president and co-founder of The Blue Dove Foundation, told eJP. “Together, we have the opportunity to scale meaningful change, break stigma, and bring culturally rooted mental health programming to every corner of the Jewish world.” 

BeWell also had a goal of expanding its services, so when Blue Dove and BaMidbar reached out, the federation saw their acquisition as “a natural fit” to “dramatically amplify the impact and reach” of the organization’s mental health services, Hutt said. “The vision was always growth through scale and sustainability.” BeWell plans to certify “Be Well educators” across the country that will be trained with the resources attained from Blue Dove and BaMidbar.

Fisch is “feeling extremely grateful,” she said. The process of acquisition was grueling, but now that it’s final, “it feels really good.”

The importance and quality of BaMidbar’s work was never in question, she said, but the finances were. “We couldn’t maximize anything that we were doing, and we just kept sinking because of funding. Now the work can live on outside of this financial barrier.”

BaMidbar laid the groundwork, “so BeWell could fly,” she said.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated that The Blue Dove Foundation was struggling financially. This has been updated to better represent the group’s motivations for joining BeWell.