Spotlight: Pulse Wellness Cooperative

Pulse Wellness Cooperative Leadership Team (left to right): Brooke White, LCSW, Clinical Director; Rosanne Marmor, LCSW, Founder and CEO; Matthew Lucas, LCSW, Chief Financial Officer; Erin Mahone, LPC, Director of Marketing and Communications; and Rebekah Lubeck, Quality Assurance Director.

Pulse Wellness Cooperative is the first worker-owned therapy cooperative in Oregon, and one of the few in the country. It provides trauma-informed therapy to both adults and youth (children and teens aged 10-18), as well as supervision and consultation to other therapists and social workers across multiple communities.

Tell us about your business.

Erin: We are Oregon's first worker-owned therapy cooperative. In many ways, we operate like a traditional outpatient therapy group practice—but in many other ways, we’re redefining how care is delivered and how providers are supported. We’re a team of 10 therapists, each with different specialties and areas of focus. We bring a wide range of lived experiences to our work, and so do our clients. We have a particular focus on the LGBTQ+ community. We also work closely with families, couples and parents navigating complex dynamics. Many of us specialize in supporting neurodivergent individuals and are deeply attuned to their unique experiences.

Rosanne: We're also about to launch a fellowship program. We will support those who identify as LGBTQIA+, immigrants, people with disabilities and BIPOC and help the clinicians who want to do service and practice have the opportunity to get licensed. We want to help launch more values-based clinical practices in Oregon.

How do you feel that Portland shapes or influences your business?

Erin: I moved to Portland four years ago. I drove across the country from the East Coast, and coming from Central Virginia, Portland feels like another galaxy. I have had the best health care of my life since I moved here. And I want to contribute to that. We want to contribute to that. We acknowledge that there are things that are fundamentally very good, and we also acknowledge that we are part of a deeply broken system, and both of those things exist simultaneously.

Rosanne: One thing I think about a lot is how white Portland is and how not to be influenced by that. How do we push harder to build a team that's diverse—not just in terms of gender or sexual identity, but also in age, race, and in our view of the world. I'm looking all the time for what's missing at Pulse and how we get those perspectives. Because once we bring those in, we’re better equipped to serve those communities.

If you could go back to the beginning when you started the business, what would you have done differently?

Rosanne: We were just in a meeting with our team about redoing our bylaws. We're a cooperative. One of the things that was interesting about reviewing the bylaws is that we didn't plan for growth as much as I would have thought. How do you have a dream and be really hopeful about something and be really consistent about your planning based on that dream? When I look back, I realized that I had the fantasy, but I wasn't confident. What I'm learning as we go through this process right now is no matter what happens, we stay the course. We keep dreaming and planning and plotting. And then if we get smacked down, we get smacked down. But we don't stop until that happens. This process right now of going over our bylaws three years later is helping me think about what happens if Medicaid disappears tomorrow. We're in a very real moment.

Erin: Yeah, we are — and every other health care provider in the country, in particular in states committed to Medicaid expansion. We're very much at the mercy of federal changes, and we don't know what to expect. One thing we’ve always done well is we listen to each other; we collect the knowledge that's in the room; we weigh things and then we make a decision based on what we think is the best decision to make at the moment. And if we get new information, then we're not averse to changing.

What is your favorite part about owning a small business?

Erin: My team.

Rosanne: Yeah—us. I think we're really fun. We love each other. There’s an incredible dedication among us to serving others. The most important thing is we show up and we do soul work every day—and it works. And I know it's weird to have a therapist say that they're surprised that this works (laughs), but, you know, you watch people transform. It's not like anything else.

Erin: And you get to do that in a space that also cares as much about you and your human development, your humanity, your excellence and your dreams and what you envision for yourself, as it does about the person on the sofa doing the therapy work. It grows out of that human being right there [motions to Rosanne]. She built the foundation. She brought us all together.

What has been your biggest success to date?

Rosanne: I am proud that 77% of our clients are on OHP (Oregon Health Plan). And I’m also scared that 77% of our clients are on OHP. I guess my biggest pride is who we serve—that we actually reached those clients. We have a staff who speaks Russian, and she gets to do therapy in Russian. I'm really proud of that. But at the same time, I don't know how to fully express pride when doing this work has also created fear for everybody who works here—that this will be taken away.

Erin: But in a way, that shows we're not afraid of hard work if we feel that it is in service of our values, our goals and who and how we want to operate in this community. That doesn't necessarily mean that we always make the right decisions. That doesn't mean that we even know that the decision we made will be right for a long time. But we don't shrink in the face of uncertainty.

What's your best advice for someone who wants to start their own business?

Rosanne: I think that the best thing is to go out and interview and take people to lunch as much as possible. That you gather as much information as you possibly can. You go slow. You're methodical and intentional. Never compromise your values and follow your heart, and it will come. And be curious. But if you do not follow your heart, you will only work on your beliefs and not your values, and you will not have what you want.

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