Frequently asked questions

Answered by a team member at Nami Tennessee

• What is your mission?

  Enhance the lives of those affected by mental illness

• How are donations used?

  Donations are used to help educate and offer resources to those affected by mental health.

• What can be done with a $100 donation?

  $100 donation ensures 5 people are educated in our Family to Family classes, and provided with materials and resources to be better equipped to understand and improve their mental health and manage their loved ones mental health.

• What progress has been made already thanks to your donors?

  We have increased our footprint in Tennessee by equipping our individual affiliate offices, found in counties across the entire state of Tennessee, with a paid Executive Director to help manage and offer additional education classes, support groups and resources to those affected by mental health.

• What is the history of your organization?

  The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation’s largest grassroots organization dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families. Founded in 1979, NAMI has become the nation’s voice on mental illness. With organizations and affiliates in every state, NAMI effectively provides advocacy, research, support, and education about serious mental illness. Members of NAMI include consumers, families and friends of people living with mental illnesses, mental health providers, students, educators, law enforcement, public officials, politicians, members of faith communities, and concerned citizens.
  As early as 1984, the Tennessee Mental Health Association proposed forming and overseeing a statewide support organization for the families of people with mental illness. But some family members, including Joyce V. Judge of Knoxville, had another idea: that family members should form and oversee their own statewide support organization.
  A model for such an organization already existed. Called AMI (Alliance for the Mentally Ill), it had been founded by two women from Wisconsin, mothers of individuals with mental illness who initiated the national organization in 1979. By 1984, AMI was organizing in states nationwide and becoming NAMI in the process. In 1985, Judge attended the NAMI convention in New Orleans and became determined to bring the zeal and urgency she saw there to Tennessee.

  Today, NAMI Tennessee depends on the hard work of a dedicated group of volunteers to provide a telephone Help Line, education programs, support groups, as a well as an e-newsletter, and monthly general education meeting.