Established in 2019 as a philanthropic arm of Otsuka, the primary focus of the Sozosei Foundation is to increase access to mental healthcare in order to eliminate the inappropriate use of jails and prisons for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in the United States. Our aim is to decriminalize mental illness.
The Sozosei Foundation has no set formula to decriminalize mental illness. As a model for solution-agnostic philanthropy, we practice grantmaking in four focus areas: Access to Care, Arts and Communications, Research, and Scaling What Works. We fund organizations of all sizes, in all life stages, from start-up to fully mature. We are eager to learn from models that are grounded in evidence or that have the potential to grow the evidence base of what works by enabling data collection, data sharing, and evaluation of evidence-ready interventions.
In addition, the Sozosei Foundation believes in the power of convenings. We host the Sozosei Summit to Decriminalize Mental Illness and a wide range of other events to bring people together in order to decriminalize mental illness. Our convenings are designed to lift diverse voices and create the opportunity to learn from one another and advance solutions.
Watch recordings of our previous Summits and convenings here and learn more about our current grantees here.
We hope our culture of curiosity, creativity, and intellectual rigor supports data-driven solutions and advances a world where mental illness is not a crime.