How to Start a TWC
The vision of The Wellness Community is to extend our services to all people with cancer and their loved ones. In order to accomplish this, we hope to open facilities in many more cities throughout the United States and the world. Most of our facilities have begun because someone like you realized that people with cancer and their loved ones can benefit from the support, education, and hope that The Wellness Community offers and they wanted to make those services available in their city. Many of the founders of our local facilities are cancer survivors dedicated to helping others in their fight for recovery.
Thank you for your interest in bringing The Wellness Community to your area. We applaud your desire to support and encourage persons diagnosed with cancer as they fight for recovery. It is people like you who make a difference in this world. Below you will find a general outline of the process of opening a Wellness Community. If you are interested in starting a Wellness Community in your area, we would be delighted to talk to you and send you more information. Please contact Mark Meinke at 1-888-793-WELL or email to mark@thewellnesscommunity.org.
Process
The process of starting a Wellness Community generally follows these steps:
1. A person or persons hear about The Wellness Community, decides that he/she/they want to bring The Wellness Community to their area, and call us.
2. We provide those persons with some general materials about The Wellness Community. We then ask them to familiarize themselves with what is done at The Wellness Community by a visit to one or more of our locations.
3. After they have examined the preliminary materials and visited a Wellness Community, we initiate an in depth discussion. We do this to determine if they have not only the interest but also the time, energy and dedication to bring together a group of 10 -15 people of influence and affluence to get the project off the ground.
4. The next step is to bring that group together. While we may be able to provide some contacts in your area, most of this work will need to be done by this group in the locality. The group of 10-15 people must be able to raise the funds necessary to open and operate a Wellness Community. Once this group is formed, you will arrange a meeting for the group with members of The Wellness Community's Expansion Committee.
5. After this meeting, if both parties want to proceed and believe the project will be successful, the Expansion Committee of The Wellness Community - National will, on behalf of the Board of Directors of The Wellness Community - National, issue a Charter for the group to get started on bringing the project to fruition.
Our experience indicates that in order to be successful it is very important for the following conditions to exist:
- The new area has the support of the medical community in the area (this has never proven to be a problem in any area);
- The new area is prepared to undertake the ongoing responsibilities of fundraising and fiscal management;
- The program is housed in a physical space of at least 4,000 to 5,000 square feet which is not associated generally with any hospital, medical, social, or religious service. We believe it is beneficial for our participants to be in a setting that is far removed from the sights, smells, and emotions associated with a hospital or medical center. Although most of our participants are under the care of conventional physicians, and we have a very close connection with the medical profession, we do not have physicians on our day-to-day staff.
- The initial group must be able to raise the startup funds within a reasonable period of time. It usually takes 18-24 months to raise sufficient funds to open.
No matter what your decision about starting a new Wellness Community, we will be happy to assist you in your efforts to be helpful to cancer patients and their families. As you know, our programs are supportive of conventional medical treatment, and are delivered without charge to the participant. However, the model for such delivery continues to evolve both by our efforts and at the suggestion of others. Therefore whatever direction you follow, we will work with you to support the objective of providing more widely available psychological and social support to persons and families fighting for recovery from cancer.
