About Heart-Strong
Our Mission
Bringing people together to work toward a world that centers love.
We're an emerging organization on a big adventure. We don't have a master plan, and we probably never will. Nobody knows exactly what it takes to build a world where more of us center love, so we're not going to pretend we do. We're going to learn along the way, make mistakes along the way, and do it in community.
Our vision is a world where more of us are pulled by love than controlled by fear.
We believe the world works better that way, for everyone and everything in it. Heart-Strong is a nonprofit centered around that belief, and we know we can't do it alone. There's an open invite for anyone curious about what that world could look like.
Our Belief
Fear Isn’t Necessarily Bad
It's an alert. It warns us when something is wrong and when we're in danger, physically or emotionally. We need it.
But fear is designed to keep us alive, not to help us flourish and thrive.
The problem with fear is when we let it lead.
It tells us to disconnect. To other. To treat someone else's progress as our loss.
Follow it long enough and that becomes our world. Isolation. Judgment. Chasing status and calling it success.
So why are so many people controlled by fear?
Because fear is easy. It happens on its own. We don't choose it. It chooses us.
Love is an active choice. It asks us to stay when leaving is easier. To be open when judgment is quicker. To be seen when hiding is safer.
And love is harder still, because most of our systems operate on fear.
Government. Capitalism. Health care. Education.
The Solution Isn’t to Eliminate Fear
That's usually where people go with this. Get rid of fear and let love run everything.
But love without fear has its own failures. It goes naive. It loses its boundaries. It avoids conflict and calls that peace.
Fear and love need each other.
Fear sounds the alarm. Love decides what to do about it.
Fear sets the boundary. Love builds the bridge.
Fear protects. Love connects.
It’s a dance. And when we learn it, things start to look different.
Connection replaces isolation.
Openness replaces judgment.
Purpose replaces chasing status.
None of this comes easy. It's a practice.
What We Do
Four ways our mission comes into action.
STORYTELLING
We share stories in whatever form a story might need. All of them are designed to make people think differently.
CONVENING
We bring people into the same room, or around the same fire, for intentional conversations.
WEAVING
We connect people, projects, and organizations to help spark new ideas and relationships.
INCUBATING
We start things, grow them in community, and take pride in when they outgrow us.
Our Pillars
Six pillars guide how we do our work.
They're distinct, but they're also a team. Each one does a different job, and none of them works alone.
BY STARTING WITH CURIOSITY
We inspire and practice curiosity. It's the first thing we ask of anyone, including ourselves.
BY QUEERING UNQUESTIONED NORMS
We ask who a norm actually serves. When it doesn't center love, we build one that does.
BY CENTERING COMMUNITY
We start and end with community. We cultivate it and we cultivate everything in it. Partners help us scale out.
BY FALLING FORWARD
We take hard first steps, embrace the messiness, and fall forward, pulled by love. There's no perfect time nor plan.
BY LEADING WITH RELATIONSHIPS
We seek to make all sides stronger in everything we do. Results aren't the point. Relationships are.
BY SHARING THE LOVE
We put our thinking out in the open and invite others to do the same. We are stewards, not owners.
Our Values
Values are the foundation.
Pillars are how we go about our work. Values are how we need to show up to get it done.
COURAGE IN THE FACE OF FEAR
Courage isn't the absence of fear. Fear is a signal that something is wrong. We name our fears out loud, do the work to understand where they're coming from, and actively choose to act from love instead of fear.
TRUST BUILDS TRUST
We lead with trust and back it with integrity. We trust others, which helps them trust us, which builds more trust in ourselves, which enables us to give more trust to others.
NO WINNING OR LOSING, ONLY LEARNING
Winning and losing assume a zero-sum world where someone has to lose. We don't play that way. We don't believe there is failure. We believe there is information. Every time we come up short, we learn what we need to, so we can land closer the next time.
REACHING ACROSS DIFFERENCE
Bonding with people like us is easy. We go looking for the bridging across every box that keeps people apart. We pay close attention to voices furthest from power, and we look for the truth and humanity in people we don't agree with.
EMBRACE THE ADVENTURE
Childlike curiosity gets us started, and we're willing to jump in before we know exactly where we're going. The practice is the point, not the destination. Hard things come up, and we go through them together. That's what builds the relationships that make the adventure worth having.
APPRECIATION AND CELEBRATION
Everyone wants to be seen, heard, understood and appreciated. We celebrate the small wins along the way, and we tell people what their work and their support means. Appreciation is an unlimited resource, so we spread it around like it'll never run out.
Theory of Change
Curiosity is at the center of it all.
Curiosity leads to creativity, where we imagine what could be different. Creativity leads to action, where we put something into the world. Action leads to belief, because doing something leaves you with wisdom, where an argument leaves you with an opinion. Belief is what inspires change, in ourselves first and then in the world around us.
And all of this happens in community, because this work is hard and it's easier and more joyful if shared.
Our Story
It started with a question about men.
Heart-Strong began as an adventure. A year of exploring where love and fear show up in men's lives, and how freeing men from fear-based models of masculinity could heal individuals, communities, and systems.
That exploration kept leading somewhere wider.
It led to friendships across walls that were built to prevent them. It led to conversations around fires that went further than any conference room ever had. It led to an art show and gallery founded by 6 men inside a Virginia prison, a podcast, and two children's books.
Along the way the question changed. It stopped being about men specifically and became about all of us. It became about what could happen if more of us were pulled by love instead of controlled by fear.
Men's experience is still part of this work. It just isn't all of it.
In April 2026, Heart-Strong became a nonprofit so the work could outlast any one person's adventure.
Who We Are
Jeremy Litchfield
Vision Steward
Kharma Amos
Board Member
Tom Haslett
Board Treasurer
Becca Darr
Board Secretary
Transparency
Heart-Strong is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in the State of Maine.
EIN 42-2881340
135 Maine St, Suite A #131, Brunswick, ME 04011
Support Our Work
Get Curious with Us
It’s where we release Stories from the Adventure and Campfire Conversations. It’s where we send updates about FROM WITHIN and Project Little You. It’s where we share our progress in building Heart-Strong and invite people to build with us.
Subscribing is free. Some readers choose to pay, which helps to support our work. Either way you will get every story, conversation, update, and invitation.
Here are some of the most recent stories from our adventure.
Browse the FROM WITHIN Gallery
Full Moon Rises
Justin Robertson
He taught himself to paint two years ago. He gives the work away because it is what he has to give.
See this painting »
Shawna: A Father's Love
Tremayne Seymour
A father's journey to break through the walls to his daughter's heart. He paints to manage anxiety, and now teaches others to.
See this painting »
Love is All Around
J Gardner
Even in the lowest of places, you can find love if you just look. An Army veteran who found art in his sixteenth year inside.
See this painting »Donate Your Talents
We're a small, scrappy group, and we're always on the lookout for people who have talents to share. After all, we all have something to give. And we all have something to learn.
Some of our immediate needs include:
Graphic Design & Identity
Grant Writing
SEO
Social Media
Google Ad Grant Management
But our needs certainly don’t stop there. If you have something to share, please do reach out.
Make a Donation
Why are our donations built around 5?
It's a reminder that a great way to get curious is to start with 5 questions. Who? What? When? Where? Why?
We'd love for you to consider giving $5 (once, every month, every year) to support our work.
Heart-Strong is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so your gift is tax deductible.