Hold Forward

hǣlan is free. This is why.

Some people have a circle holding their hǣlan. Some don’t. Hold Forward exists so the second group never knows the difference.

Their app simply says, “your hǣlan is held.”

Free. Always. For everyone.

The patient never pays. The circle never pays. Nothing in the app is gated, metered, or trialed — ever.

No one applies.

“Held” is a funding state, never an access state. Holds are counted against active records automatically, longest-unheld first, purely so impact can be reported truthfully.

No one is named.

Sponsors never learn who. Recipients never learn from whom. Anonymity runs both directions.

The money funds all of it, honestly.

Contributions fund the held records, the infrastructure and AI behind them, and the people who build hǣlan. A public breakdown is updated quarterly. “Months held” is our impact measure — not a restriction on how the money is used.

Surplus waits, visibly.

If contributions exceed active need, the balance is reported, not quietly absorbed.

How a hold works

$6.99

holds one person’s hǣlan for one month. Every tier below is that unit, multiplied. A sponsor never funds an app — they hold a person’s record: their days, their meds, their questions for their care team, their circle — for a month at a time.

Allocation policy

How a contribution finds someone.

  1. 01

    Directed gifts first.

    A gift made through a person’s wish link or /give goes to that person. If their record is already held, the gift overflows into the pool — the giver is told plainly: “Their hǣlan is already held, so your month went to someone whose isn’t.”

  2. 02

    The pool holds the unheld.

    Active records with no current hold, longest-waiting first. Automatic, anonymous, no means test.

  3. 03

    The ledger is public.

    Monthly, aggregate: months contributed → months allocated → months waiting.

What sponsors receive

Four ways to hold forward.

  Individual Hundred Steward Bearer
Contribution any amount from $6.99 $699/yr (100 months) $2,500/yr (~357 months) $10,000+/custom
Impact report receipt with months held quarterly monthly monthly + annual review
Site acknowledgment name listed name/logo listed name/logo + program page feature
Co-brandable one-pager
Employer activation optional

Never included, at any tier

  • In-app presence of any kind — hǣlan’s no-ads law holds for sponsors too.
  • User data.
  • Contact with recipients.
  • Influence over allocation.

Employer activation lets a company pre-hold any employee who activates hǣlan with a work-verified email. The employer’s report shows only rounded aggregate counts — never names, never exact small counts.

Impact, reported honestly

What we can report, in aggregate, without opening anyone’s record: records held; months held; days of check-ins kept; medications tracked; questions carried into appointments; circles connected; wishes delivered. Any count below five is reported as “fewer than five,” so a small number can never identify a person.


Hold Forward contributions are purchases of held months for people we’ll never name — not tax-deductible donations. hǣlan is an independent company, not a charity.

For sponsors

Become a founding holder.

Write to us

A real person answers.

For individuals

Giving for one person you love starts from their wish page; open giving for anyone arrives this week.