🌟 Our Story

About Triumph Collective

Courage is not the absence of struggle, but the willingness to seek help in the midst of it.

What Grounds Our Mission

Triumph Collective is built on the belief that courage is not the absence of struggle, but the willingness to seek help in the midst of it. We exist because data across the United States—and especially in South Carolina, Arizona, and Maryland—shows that mental-health care is still financially and structurally out of reach for far too many people.

Our ethos is grounded in three realities:

1. Insurance does not guarantee access.

Federal laws like the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) and the ACA require fairness when mental-health benefits are offered—but they do not require that insurance plans actually cover mental-health services at all.

  • Nationally, nearly 1 in 10 adults with private insurance report their plan does not cover mental or emotional health care.
  • Among adults with unmet mental-health needs, 30% report they could not get care because insurance "didn't cover it" or "didn't pay enough."

Insurance exists on paper; access often does not.

2. Coverage gaps are concentrated in our focus states.

  • South Carolina has nearly 65,000 adults locked out of Medicaid entirely due to the state's non-expansion status—leaving low-income residents with no path to meaningful coverage.
  • Arizona ranks 49th in the nation for adult mental-health access; over 14% of adults report cost as the primary barrier to mental-health care even with insurance.
  • Maryland, despite its wealth, shows severe disparities: insured patients are 3.5Ă— more likely to go out-of-network for behavioral health than for medical care, and 15.3% of psychiatrist visits are out-of-network.

In these states, the promise of care is often hollow.

3. Provider shortages and economic stress widen the gap.

  • Rural South Carolina counties have no psychiatrists or psychologists at all.
  • Arizona and Maryland both face deep workforce shortages, long waitlists, and limited networks, making "covered" services functionally unavailable.
  • Extreme housing cost burdens and food insecurity force families to choose between rent, meals, and mental-health care—a choice no one should have to make.

Triumph Collective was created to intervene at the exact point where "coverage" stops and "care" begins.

Why This Matters

Behind every statistic is a person carrying more than anyone should have to carry alone.

A young adult in Phoenix finally finds the courage to seek therapy—only to discover the nearest in-network provider is a two-month wait and two bus transfers away.

A parent in rural South Carolina is stuck in the Medicaid coverage gap, earning too much to qualify but far too little to afford counseling for crippling anxiety.

A caregiver in Maryland, insured but exhausted, is forced out-of-network again and again because local mental-health providers don't take her plan.

These are not failures of individuals. They are failures of systems.

And yet, despite these obstacles, people continue to show courage—the courage to ask for help, to keep families afloat, to seek healing in places where options feel scarce.

Triumph Collective stands with that courage.

We turn survival into triumph.

The People We Serve

We serve individuals and families who:

Live at or below the poverty line in South Carolina, Arizona, and Maryland

Are uninsured, under-insured, or trapped in the insurance coverage gap

Face high out-of-pocket costs, inadequate network access, or plans that do not cover mental health at all

Live in food deserts, cost-burdened housing, or counties with severe provider shortages

Have the courage to seek help, but lack the resources or coverage to receive it

They are parents, students, veterans, service workers, caregivers, returning citizens, and young adults. They are our neighbors—and they deserve care, dignity, and hope.

About Us — Triumph Collective

Triumph Collective is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to mental-health care for individuals who would otherwise go without it. We partner with local, licensed providers to offset the cost of counseling and psychiatric services through subsidies and sliding-scale arrangements for individuals living at or below the poverty line in South Carolina, Arizona, and Maryland.

Across our focus states, socioeconomic pressures and structural inequities cut people off from the care they deserve. We exist to bridge that gap—turning barriers into pathways and transforming courage into care.

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Whether you need support or want to help others access care, there's a place for you in our community.

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