Funding Partnership Opportunities
We're seeking $300K to scale a stress-reset app for PreK–College students across Oregon. This is an education technology tool — not a clinical mental health product — designed to restore student learning readiness through a five-minute self-guided process.
The problem
Oregon has one school counselor for every 461 students¹ — well below the recommended ratio of 250:1. More than one-third of Oregon students are chronically absent.² Achievement gaps persist, especially among students experiencing poverty and students of color.³
When students are too stressed to engage, academic intervention can't close the gap. The bottleneck isn't curriculum. It's capacity.
This is an education problem, not a mental health problem. Students don't need therapy — they need learning readiness support. WiseMind provides that through physiological recovery tools students can use themselves.
¹ Oregon Health Authority workforce needs assessment, 2025
² Oregon Department of Education, 2024-25 school year
³ Oregon Community Foundation equity research; ODE Statewide Report Card
THE WISEMIND APP
A browser-based stress-reset tool designed for MTSS Tier 1 and Tier 2 support.
Students in grades 3–college use the app independently. Teachers guide PreK–2 students as a whole-class, small-group practice, or in-the-moment individual support. No login, no installation, no teacher training required.
The app guides students through a brief physiological recovery sequence:
Rate stress intensity and map their stress state
Match physiological supports to their map
Choose and try a 2-minute guided exercise
Rate intensity again — option to try a new support
Most SEL approaches start with external attribution — naming what caused the feeling — or cognitive reframing. The WiseMind framework starts with the nervous system's stress response. Students learn to recognize stress patterns in their bodies and use physiological recovery tools to shift the state. That shift — the body moving first — restores capacity for focus and engagement.
COPPA, FERPA, and GDPR compliant. No student data collection. Approximately 5 minutes per session.
what we’ve built
From 2005 to Today
WiseMind Educational Services was founded in 2014. The framework behind it started developing in 2005 — through direct work with students, families, and educators in rural Oregon schools.
Then, from 2023 to 2025, WiseMind coached nearly 400 students across Salem-Keizer and Silver Falls school districts and the iBuild workforce program. We trained over 400 adults — educators, parents, early childhood professionals, and CTE instructors through Team Oregon Build's statewide professional development network.
Impact Map 2023-2025
Every school and organizational partner requested continuation. That signal confirmed demand and drove the decision to formalize the framework into three delivery modes:
Workforce training
Microcredential for students in grades 5–9 and workforce programs
Self-guided app for students (needs funding to scale)
Four Oregon schools across different contexts (rural, workforce/CTE, early childhood, and Title 1) will support app pilots in Fall 2026. These pilots will provide quantitative outcome data to support broader adoption.
Investment opportunity
We're seeking $300K to fund:
App development and launch
Certification program development
Website, marketing, and outreach infrastructure
Operations and staffing
why this works
When the nervous system's protective response activates, access to higher-order thinking shuts down. That's a physiological state — students can't think their way out until the body shifts first.
The WiseMind framework teaches students to recognize stress patterns in their bodies and use physiological recovery tools to restore learning readiness. That shift — through the body first — reopens the brain’s access to focus, connection, and engagement.