Voices For Suicide Prevention
Voices For Suicide Prevention
Local Voices Together Create National Impact on Suicide Prevention
A dinner conversation sparked a movement. We sit down with leaders from SAVE and Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation CEO Tony Coder to share how the National Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network (NSPAN) is helping small and mid-sized nonprofits combine their strengths, talents and passions!
The idea is simple but ambitious: when community groups connect and collaborate, proven strategies scale faster, funding pathways open, and lives are saved.
We talk through the four pillars that guide the work—education and training, advocacy, lethal means safety, and support for suicide loss survivors—and why they matter now. The data is shifting: while some demographics improve, suicide risk is climbing among women, preteens, and rural communities tied to a struggling agricultural economy.
Technology looms large in this conversation too. Social media can harm, yet responsible AI and digital tools may help identify risk and connect people to care sooner. The keys are safeguards and smart design paired with human support. We also spotlight 988—the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—and the surprising awareness gap among young workers.
If you lead or support a suicide prevention nonprofit, or if you’re a community member who wants to help, this is your invite to lean in. Learn how to join NSPAN, collaborate on funding and advocacy, and carry solutions across county and state lines. Subscribe, share this episode with a local organization, and leave a review to help more people find these stories to hopefully, save more lives.
Welcome to our latest episode of Voices for Suicide Prevention. As we like to say, our conversations are real talk, real honest, real life.
SPEAKER_02:I'm Stephanie Booker, and I'm Scott Light. Boy, do we have two experts with us today to really dive into several things here, Stephanie? When when we talk about mental health and suicide prevention in Ohio, we're also going to talk about it nationally. We're going to talk about how nonprofits in this space can collaborate and make their voices heard together and how to make positive changes that can have that national influence.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we certainly are honored today to have Tony Coder, CEO of the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, and Eric Mischi of Save. Eric, let's start on the personal side, if you don't mind. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to this work.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I've spent uh most of my career before the nonprofit sector uh in local, state, and national government politics and public policy. And so um about 13 years ago, I got involved in the nonprofit world. I led two nonprofits before I became the CEO of SAVE about two years ago. Um Save is a 36-year-old national suicide prevention nonprofit that focuses on prevention through what we call our four pillars, education and training, advocacy, lethal means safety, and support for suicide law survivors. Um I have a long history of uh mental health challenges in my family, long history of friends and family members, coworkers who died by suicide. Um, so the nexus of that life experience, my career experience, and the subject matter kind of all came together at the right time. And one of the issues that came up was the concerns that a lot of small and mid-sized suicide prevention organizations had, which is resources and visibility and advocacy, and how could they work with one another across the country? So this was a this was a kind of a brainchild, if you will, of sitting there across from Tony and Ohio.
SPEAKER_03:There's a lot of great organizations nationally that do a lot of amazing, amazing work. Uh, but what seemed to get lost was a lot of these smaller, a lot of folks who were doing grassroots work, doing really, really important stuff. And uh I think it was uh uh over some Mexican food that uh he and I decided to uh, hey, uh maybe there's maybe there's something we need to do here. And you know, I really, really respect Eric and Save has done amazing work over the last uh number of years. And uh just this to me was such an amazing opportunity to not only uh I guess put suicide prevention uh more to a forefront, but also uh these local groups that are just doing great work, and we don't just need to talk about it nationally, but it also, you know, at that local level and that local flavor really needs to be uh nourished and it also needs to be, I think, understood and um celebrated.
SPEAKER_02:Similar question that we started with, Eric. Tell our listeners, you you've been on several of these podcasts, so people know you, they they know your voice, they know your passion. But uh for maybe that new listener out there, um, tell them how you came to this work, your background.
SPEAKER_03:So um I also had work uh in uh state government and uh did some national work, uh worked for Governor Bob Taft, um, and then uh also uh uh Governor Ted Strickland, one Republican, one Democrat, so you can hate me both ways. Um and uh you know did a lot of mental health policy work, a lot of drug policy work, and then my son had his struggles with suicide. And becoming a family member and someone who was involved with the system as opposed to being a policy person with the system was an entirely different experience, and it really frustrated me and really, really uh quite frankly, uh frustrated me to no end. Um so uh, you know, with with my son, uh he's doing, you know, he's actually the example that with medication, with treatment, with, you know, so with the things that we do have for mental health that people can recover and live really, really productive lives. So, you know, he he's the example of that. But getting there was a struggle and a system, you know, as I'll go back to what our governor Mike Dwine says, you know, it isn't broken, it was never built. That's powerful.
SPEAKER_00:So when we're talking about NSPAN, that that stands for something. It's an acronym. I'll make sure that I have it correct. National Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network. What are what exactly are you hoping to be able to do with this new network?
SPEAKER_01:Here's the thing, and Tony mentions this. You know, we have hundreds of small and mid-sized suicide prevention nonprofits throughout the country, every corner of the country, that are doing incredibly important work, very grassroots, boots on the ground kind of work in suicide prevention. And one of the things that I often talk about in when we talk about ANSBAN and why I'm excited by this coalition of small and mid-sized nonprofits is that I think about how long it took us to map the human genome. And it took us forever and ever and ever to do that until we finally connected the world to the internet and the online. And as soon as we did that, we found researchers from all across the world who had done their own work in the space of human genome study and research and development, and much more quickly accelerated the process of us finally being able to map the human genome. I'm a big believer that there are organizations out there in this country that are doing work in suicide prevention that all of us can learn from, that we can amplify, that we can help lift up and show the success that they're having. And not every one of them has to be based in New York or Washington, DC. Not every one of them has to have a multi-million dollar budget. They may be a small family nonprofit somewhere in the West Coast or somewhere in Middle America that's doing incredible work. And I think our vision for NSPAN is to make sure that we are recognizing those organizations and giving them an opportunity to share their work, be recognized, but also to help collate and aggregate resources to help support their work.
SPEAKER_03:I go back to uh thinking about that evening that we were together with all of those um those nonprofits Eric spoke about earlier. And the the the challenges they were having, the difficulties, the successes were really, you know, some things I'd never heard of or or thought about. You know, I'm a statewide organization. Uh Eric uh does a lot of work in Minnesota, but he's also a national organization. So to have some of these grassroots organizations and some of the local politics, the local things that they were going through and how they're being impacted by federal policy, state policies were really kind of fascinating. And it's like, wow, this is uh really something that, you know, if if these, I think, you know, 20 folks around the table are going through this, how many other small and mid-sized nonprofits are going through the same thing and probably feel like they're just yelling in in the middle of a hurricane? So, you know, that's what was really exciting to me was uh about this idea was let's get these folks together uh for networking, but also form that unified voice that, you know, you're not the only one in the hurricane, you're not the only one in the storm, but uh together maybe we can, you know, build a build a little bit of a boat and um you know weather the storm together as opposed to feeling that you're kind of all alone.
SPEAKER_02:I wonder if if is Ohio a microcosm here of this exact effort in this in this respect? We have, Eric, we have 88 counties here, but we don't have county coalitions for suicide prevention in all 88 counties. It's what, 70, 75 or something like that. But let's be honest, the coalitions in Adams County, the coalition in Adams County, rural county here in Ohio, Eric, is very different from the Franklin County, which covers Columbus. So that gets to both of the points that you're making that the local needs need to be addressed, whatever, whatever they are, how desperate they may be, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that's exactly what um it is that uh whether you're you know in Minnesota, um you know, we don't have any uh uh uh tribes, you know, uh Native American tribes here in in uh in Ohio, but you know, one state up in Michigan, uh there's a number. So, you know, how there are so many differences, you know, state by state, county by county, uh community by community, but they all deal with a lot of different personalities, a lot of different um populations within within their own community. So that was uh something I was you know pretty excited about. And then also I like Eric, so I get to work with him more.
SPEAKER_01:Tony, I like Eric too, but I also like Tony. Um the the the other piece of this with NSPAN is this notion of resource sharing. And you know, a lot of these groups that we've talked to, um, you know, have talked about how they have challenges raising funds. So one of our discussions is at some point, how can N SPAN play a role in supporting different organizations accessing resources that they need to have to do some of their work? Other organizations are looking to have an advocacy voice in Washington, DC. How can we help support that as well? I think one of the things that I will tell you is that I've long been somebody who is not very comfortable when we operate with the status quo. And I think as you look at suicide prevention in this country for the last 20 or 30 years, I think that there is a genuine desire among a lot of people, including myself, to enter into this space and to find ways to be positively disruptive. And if part of that is engaging in other voices and bringing other people's life perspectives, organizational perspectives to the table in a subject matter field where all too often I don't think they've been given the opportunity to be at the table. I think NSPAN gives us an incredible opportunity to bring people to the table that up until now simply haven't been invited to be there.
SPEAKER_00:And I feel like you've you've touched on a lot of things that we were hoping to talk about, that that broader vision. Now, if if we wanted to date ourselves, some of us can remember the American Express Card ad. Membership has its privileges. So, in that regard, um, how does NSPAN membership, what does that offer someone?
SPEAKER_01:So we've just now uh built a board of directors for this group. So that that has now taken place. We're gonna now start scheduling regular meetings, and I think part of the work and the role of the board of directors now will be to set the course for the direction of N SPAN, and included in that is to address the question of quote, what are the what are the benefits of being involved with N SPAN? I think identifying where it is that organizations want to prioritize the work of N SPAN has to be a collaborative. It cannot be something that one or two of the groups that are involved with this make those decisions. And that is the other piece that I think is enormously important is that these organizations have to believe that there is a genuine collaboration to do the work together. And so I think the greatest privilege of membership is that notion of collaboration.
SPEAKER_02:And Tony, you're on this board.
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, both Eric and I, uh, one of the uh uh as founding members are on this board. And uh to me it's really exciting because I got to uh see who else is uh on this board, and I've heard of uh many, if not all, of them, and the great work that they're doing. But again, being small, you know, a lot of this, a lot of the space in suicide prevention are taken up by the really, really large national uh groups. Again, they do phenomenal work, so this is not any kind of uh uh slam on them. But um I'm excited about working with folks that I've heard great things about, but you know, because they're in, you know, maybe a one, two, three, or, you know, 10-person shop that they haven't, you know, been invited to these larger discussions. So that's what I'm really, really excited about is to go through this process and see what we can do uh to advance suicide prevention, uh, not just from a national lens, but then also having that community input that I think is so important, especially to legislators.
SPEAKER_02:It's also maybe a good time to level set for our audience on where we are. Uh Eric, can you give us just again some broad strokes uh about what's happening in your state and in Minnesota overall when it comes to suicide and suicide prevention and mental health?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I would say that the the data is mixed, both in Minnesota and I think nationally, in terms of suicide and suicide rates. We're seeing some dips in certain demographics, but we're starting to see significant upticks in demographics that traditionally have not been identified at greatest risk of suicide. We're seeing higher rates of suicide among women. Uh, preteen youth, National Institute of Mental Health released a study about a year ago that's just absolutely alarming that talks about the fastest growing demographic for suicidal ideation are preteen youth in this country, African American kids, Hispanic kids. I think we're seeing swaths of the United States where rural suicide rates are starting to climb precipitously as the agricultural economy struggles. So I think we can take some comfort that there are programs out there that individually are making an impact and making a difference. Again, uh come back to, you know, we talked at the beginning before the program started about a project we worked on in Minnesota to put physical barriers on a tall public structure. There's temporary barriers on that structure now. We know that has already saved five lives. You know, you look at that and you go, you know what, that's real impact. Um, but I would say that part of my hope for NSPAN, again, comes back to this idea that there are groups and individuals and organizations out there that are doing work that I think we need to know about, that I think need to be brought to the table so we can understand what is working in their community that we may want to replicate elsewhere.
SPEAKER_02:How are we doing in Ohio, Tony?
SPEAKER_03:Um it's been a rough year, not gonna lie. Um it's uh, you know, this fall has been especially tough on some folks. Um, young people are really struggling right now. Uh, one of the other exciting um opportunities that I think that Eric and I chat about quite a bit, how do we work with AI and some of the technology? Um, you know, especially as we're seeing in Ohio this rise in in uh suicides, uh, you know, some related to AI and um social media and some of those other technological issues. My job is I want to put myself out of business because we're so because we're so damn good at what we do. But um at the same time, um, you know, there's a lot of other things going on, a lot of other factors, uh, you know, technology being one of them, that are making our jobs harder. And and we are not anti-technology. We think there's a lot of great things, you know, connectedness, um, you know, uh ability to find uh things pretty easily, um, you know, some promising uh things that are going on with AI. But I think there are also, you know, we've got to also pull back the brakes a little bit and make sure there are also protections for folks who might be struggling. Again, I'm hopeful that Inspan and our work with Eric and Save uh can be impactful and we can actually start uh building some of these things that uh we know are having impacts on suicide prevention. But um, you know, it's uh it's it's tough to do it alone.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And one of the challenges I think that um Eric may have already touched on is that some of these organizations that would be um you know part of N SPAN are are having some funding issues. So how will uh NSPAN help address that type of issue?
SPEAKER_01:That's a great question, and it's one of the conversations that I think we want to have with the NSPAN group and the members. You know, is it sharing grant writing resources? Is it collaboratively joining and submitting mutual grant applications in particular spaces that may be relevant to the work that these groups do? At some point, you know, is it identifying a specific resource who's a grant writer that everybody can kind of share, right? So I think one of the parts about this whole effort is really trying to identify and learn what are the greatest needs that organizations have and what is the greatest impact that NSPAN can have. One of the things that I don't have an interest in is just having another nonprofit organization out there, and that's one thing I ought to be really clear about. N SPAN is not another nonprofit organization, it's not out there raising money. Um, Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation and SABE right now are using a lot of our resources to help get this off the ground and move it forward, but at no point in time is this envisioned to be quote, competing out there in the space with other folks that are doing the work. So I think it's incumbent upon each of us that are part of MSPAN to identify internally what resources might we have available to share among our collaborators with MSPAN? And as we grow this organization and its impact and its influence, what resources can we find and make available that will benefit everybody in their work?
SPEAKER_02:So, Eric, kind of a piggyback to Stephanie's question earlier about uh membership having its privileges. Uh, who can join NSPAN and how do people find out about you? How do they contact you?
SPEAKER_01:So I I think this is really open to anybody, uh any organization. I think if you're a small and mid-sized suicide prevention nonprofit, you're gonna, you're gonna, this will be a good place to call home. Um, you can reach out to either Tony or to myself at our emails, and mine is emishy at save.org and and reach out. We'd be happy to connect with you and talk with you about what we're trying to do and get you involved. In this. So I would say it's open to any organization whose primary mission and purpose is suicide prevention.
SPEAKER_03:The the power of InSPAN is exactly what Eric's in DC right now, uh talk, you know, talking about um, you know, these these structures that need um barriers and such. And these are things that I know are an issue, but we just haven't had the uh I guess the the manpower or the ability to to move um in Ohio. But with Eric leading, oh wow, okay, we can we can absolutely be in support of that. So it's the ability to also connect, and yeah, I can't do it by myself, but man, if I can join with Eric and help his cause, that's the power. Uh the the more voices and the more uh uh the the more that groups can join together, um, that's that's how movements get started.
SPEAKER_01:On to that point, you know, out here there is also 20 moms who have been advocating for regulations to make online worlds safe for kids, right? Each one of them has their own group, their own nonprofit. They are out there doing that work. We have the privilege to be able to help support them and collaborate with them. I will tell you, and having spent too much of my life in government politics, change only happens when individuals feel that they're empowered to make an impact. And I think span is that opportunity for a lot of organizations that are out there that are going, you know what, I would like to make a bigger impact. I would like to make a bigger ripple, if you will, in the work that we're doing and share that out with others and finding ways to get behind them and support their work and amplify their work. I think that's really the true power of Anspan in being a collaborative entity.
SPEAKER_02:I think too, leaning into, I love positively disruptive. You know, that that's almost mission statement worthy to just say, you know, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this tactically, you know, long term, uh, in terms of metrics, just to be constant, constantly thinking about being positively disruptive to the system. Because let's be honest, maybe the system needs it.
SPEAKER_03:Especially around suicide, where you know, we we didn't mention the word, you know, 25 years ago. I remember my you know grandmother back when I was a little kid, and it was a lot longer than 25 years ago, but uh, you know, she she said, Oh, you know, that lady down the street, she has the C word. And the C word is not what we think of now. It was cancer. But she couldn't even say cancer. Right, right. Um, so you know, a lot of folks well, well, you know, they, you know, they kill themselves. Right. They whisper it. Still in whisper questions. And you know, this is something that, you know, uh uh five people a day in Ohio are dying by suicide. That's that's almost 2,000 people. You know, nationally, I think it's somewhere around 130 people a day are dying by suicide. We've got, you know, about 20 veterans a day. You know, this is something that is not so rare that it just happens once in a blue moon. This is happening every day to a lot of families, and we need to take it outside of uh the the shadows and bring it to the light. And we think we can do this by being by being uh as Eric puts it, positively disruptive. And by doing that, we can show that you know there's a lot more people who have been impacted by suicide than haven't, and that we are the majority.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that would bring us then to that call to action. So, what can other organizations, nonprofits, for-profits, businesses, government levels, I mean, any level, how can we get them more involved with suicide prevention?
SPEAKER_01:There's there's no end to getting involved in suicide prevention. I think from any of the members of NSPAN, I think if you are listening to this anywhere in Ohio or anywhere else that you might know of an organization called that's a member of N SPAN, you know, support them financially. Go to their website, share their resources, get information out there, volunteer, sponsor an event, sponsor an activity. There is no shortage of doing things and getting out there and making a difference and making an impact. The key piece here to suicide prevention is we've got to be willing to take risks, we've got to be willing to lean in, and we gotta be willing to challenge the status quo. I think it's a legitimate conversation for the public to have to say in the 20 or 30 years that we've been doing this work, the numbers don't seem to be dramatically changing. I think that anybody who is contributing money, either as a taxpayer or a donor, has a right to ask the question of what are you doing that's different or making an impact. But the best way to make an impact, if you're listening to this, is to get involved in any of these organizations. It is learn about suicide, talk about suicide, don't be afraid to talk to somebody who is a suicide law survivor and ask them what they're experiencing and where you can help support them. And I would tell you time and time again, anybody that's listening to this is if you're in crises or you need help or you know somebody who is in crises and needs help, call, text, chat 988, and make sure everybody in your orbit is aware of that resource.
SPEAKER_03:He mentions 988. I went to a uh a large business, a a national corporation last week and was talking, they had a suicide of one of their folks. Um and uh when I was talking to the other coworkers and they were all in their early 20s, uh, none of them had heard of 988. So I think we have a you know a pretty huge uh lift that we have to provide um to, you know, and we can do this through quite frankly, local groups. It can't just be a national campaign where we're going to you know release a bunch of billboards and ads. If these local groups can, you know, really be embedded in their community and share 988, uh, frankly, you know, Southeast Ohio folks are gonna listen to Southeast Ohio folks. You know, I live in a little to a little county, and if you aren't from that county, then you know they're not gonna listen to anybody. So uh anybody from the big city, as they call it. Right. So, you know, having these um the these ambassadors uh for suicide prevention within each community, I think is really, really important and can help share 988 and other resources in a lot more effective way than just uh throwing a couple million dollars at a national ad campaign.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. I uh I can't wait to see where we are. And and Eric, of course, we'll have you back before five years, but I just can't wait to see where NSPAN is in five years. Uh just to see that growth, this energy, and I don't know, Stephanie, I don't know about you. Uh, you know, I'd kind of like to invite myself to your to the next Mexican dinner that you two have because evidently that's what they have. Evidently, something is something was in the food, right? Something was in the food, but that was evidently something that just you know kickstarted this whole thing. I think it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:Tony and Eric, thank you for all the work that you do and will be doing in the future. We are so excited for what that future might hold, and we're excited to have you part of the discussion today.
SPEAKER_02:To our listeners, we thank you as well. When you listen to our episodes, just like Eric and Tony have been talking about, you break stigmas, you break barriers, you care about mental health and saving lives. Whatever you're doing out there at your local level, keep doing it, and we will continue to lift up your voice. This is Voices for Suicide Prevention, brought to you by the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, and I'm gonna go back to the same thing.