Summary
What do they do? Huckleberry offers individual, family and group counseling in San Francisco. We model a narrower proposed adolescent anxiety course; do not apply this estimate to crisis intervention, acute suicidality, substance dependence or all trauma services. More
Why this approach interests us
- Accessible behavioral counseling can reduce avoidant behavior and improve functioning for a suitable adolescent anxiety cohort.
Our main reservations
- The local protocol, recipient mix and marginal cost are unverified. The external comparator is assisted referral, not no care.
What do you get for your dollar?
Our best guess is $3.69M per better life (10 QALYs) for a proposed brief adolescent anxiety course. This is not a measured Huckleberry effect, nor a model of its entire counseling portfolio. On this narrow health-only estimate, it is not a leading cost-effectiveness choice. Inspect assumptions and formulas →
- our best guess
- $3.69M — per 10 incremental QALYs; analyst scenario
- positive scenarios
- $618K–$71.1M — Not local confidence bounds; null benefit possible
- cost per offer
- $2,400 — Assumed staffing budget, not a quote
- funding room
- Unverified — Medi-Cal and other funding need reconciliation
1. What do they do?
Huckleberry offers individual, family and group counseling in San Francisco. We model a narrower proposed adolescent anxiety course; do not apply this estimate to crisis intervention, acute suicidality, substance dependence or all trauma services.
Define the eligible cohort
Match age, diagnosis and treatment need before transferring evidence.
Offer a structured course
Budget staff delivery, supervision and failed engagement together.
Measure incremental health
Compare with realistic alternative access and retain a time-limited endpoint.
Scope of this review. The organization describes Medi-Cal provision and sliding-scale care. Free care to the recipient does not mean zero resource cost or an unfunded service. Undated relative-year state-contract language is not current funding room.
2. Monitoring and information sharing
185 pediatric anxiety/depression patients; mean age 11.3
External randomized economic evaluation. The model uses 0.026 incremental HUI2-based QALYs over 32 weeks after 8–12 offered sessions.
Our assessment. A mixed-cohort estimate, not an adolescent-anxiety subgroup effect or local causal evidence. Restrict the proposed slice and inspect source eligibility exclusions before adopting the estimate.
3. Qualitative assessment
Accessible behavioral counseling can reduce avoidant behavior and improve functioning for a suitable adolescent anxiety cohort.
Key reservations
- No verified match to the exact trial protocol.
- Local staffing cost and reimbursement are unknown.
- Short health horizon excludes possible durable and family benefits.
- Neither a free-to-client service nor an aggregate improvement rate establishes donor additionality.
Benefits not included in our estimate
- Long-term health beyond 32 weeks
- Family, education and justice outcomes
- Societal healthcare savings
- Shelter, sexual-health and other Huckleberry programs
4. What do you get for your dollar?
Our best estimate: $3.69M per 10 QALYs.
The cost is an explicit nominal-dollar analyst budget: twelve staff hours at $200, including engagement and supervision. We retain half the external health gain for transfer and half for additionality. Neither discount is measured locally.
A better life is our comparison unit of 10 additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), potentially spread across people. These are uncertain estimates, not measured returns or verified donation offers.
How we calculate the estimate
DOLLARS PER BETTER LIFE: 10 × $2,400 ÷ (0.026 × 50% × 50%)
≈ $3.69M per 10 QALYs
Model inputs and assumptions
- Cost per offered course
- 2400 (range: 1600 / 2400 / 4000). Analyst nominal USD budget: twelve 45-minute sessions plus three hours of engagement/supervision = twelve hours at an assumed $200 all-in rate. Not an observed Huckleberry cost, inflation adjustment, or price quote. Includes noncompletion effort. Source anchor or explicit judgment.
- External incremental QALYs
- 0.026 (range: 0.046 / 0.026 / 0.009). Lynch 2021 Table 3: adjusted HUI2 difference .026 over 32 weeks, 95% CI .009–.046, brief behavioral therapy versus assisted referral. Endpoint already integrates follow-up and assignment/noncompletion; no extra duration or completion factor. Source anchor or explicit judgment.
- Local program/population transfer
- 0.5 (range: 0.75 / 0.5 / 0.25). 50% judgment for older local recipients, protocol and setting differences. Restricted to a plausible adolescent anxiety slice; not extrapolated to acute crises, substance dependence or all trauma counseling. Source anchor or explicit judgment.
- Donor additionality
- 0.5 (range: 0.75 / 0.5 / 0.25). 50% judgment for alternative access and funding substitution. Medi-Cal and state-supported care exist; no claim that half of any actual gift is additional. Source anchor or explicit judgment.
Illustrative $100,000: 41.7 offers and 0.271 QALYs
- Optimistic positive: $618.36K per 10 QALYs. 1.617 QALYs per $100,000; not available funding room
- Central analyst estimate: $3.69M per 10 QALYs. 0.271 QALYs per $100,000; not available funding room
- Pessimistic positive: $71.11M per 10 QALYs. 0.014 QALYs per $100,000; not available funding room
Uncertainty. No additional effective care means no finite positive price. Positive scenarios combine trial endpoints with subjective inputs; they are not confidence intervals for Huckleberry. Harm and long-term effects are unmodeled.
Use the measured time-integrated endpoint once
A direct external QALY endpoint avoids converting the organization’s aggregate well-being improvement percentage into utility. It still requires a local treatment and population match.
ADDITIONAL HEALTH PER OFFER: 0.026 × 50% × 50%
0.0065 incremental QALYs
QALY conversion assumptions
Do not multiply by follow-up duration or completion again. Societal savings in an economic evaluation are not money returned to this donor and are excluded from the numerator.
5. Funding and previous grants
A priced additional course with identifiable reimbursement and staffing capacity is missing.
A private gift could fund a genuinely new course, replace reimbursement, or support other services. The present model does not identify which occurs.
This review does not establish a verified marginal funding offer or a complete history of grants.
Opens the organization’s giving page. A general donation may not fund the specific activity modeled here; confirm allocation with the recipient.
6. Sources
- Counseling Programs. Huckleberry Youth Programs. SF service identity, sliding scale and Medi-Cal provision; not marginal costs. Published: Undated; relative-year language not treated as current contract date; retrieved: 2026-09-07.
- Cost-effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Therapy for Pediatric Anxiety and Depression in Primary Care. Lynch et al., JAMA Network Open. External randomized trial economic analysis; direct HUI2 outcome, not local causal evidence. Published: 2021-03-15; retrieved: 2026-09-07.
- Our Mission in Action. Huckleberry Youth Programs. Aggregate self-reported outcome context; not model effect input. Published: 2025 year-end; exact date unavailable; retrieved: 2026-09-07.
Annual expenses: years and sources
Average annual expenses (three consecutive fiscal years): $8,613,983. Organization size is separate from the modeled cost-effectiveness of a donation.
Huckleberry Youth Programs Inc
Whole legal entity Form 990 Part IX total functional expenses; latest original reconstructed filings checked, fiscal-end year from printed reporting dates. Older fallback rows from IRS extracted API.
Latest original filings checked; ProPublica extracted API lags these original returns.