A helper for every family at your school.

An AI, by text, in their language, that works for them and finishes what letters only ask for. $5.60 a student a year, and $2.40 more only if it works.

For school districts Benefit funds: Part B premiums the state would pay →

Schools are paid for things only families can finish: a day in school, an income form, a consent. Finishing them is nobody's job. Where the two were tested side by side, help beat a letter, and help was never affordable. Now it costs a few dollars.

A single black dendrite fanning across pale limestone

A field of manganese dendrites on Solnhofen limestone

A tree-shaped dendrite in black and ochre on cream stone

Schools first.

A fifth absence, a missing income form, an unsigned consent: today each one gets a letter. With Mycelium each gets an offer from the school, in the family's language: a helper that finishes it with them and makes sure what it unlocks gets used. The school pays $5.60 a student a year, and $2.40 more only if its filings show it worked.

For the offer, the helper acts as the school's official under FERPA; everything after that runs on the family's own yes. The school sees attendance and what got finished, in aggregate; never a reason.

$947K

what Pajaro Valley Unified could recover each year from its low-income count and attendance, worked from its own public filings. Find your district

From Maya's school · in Spanish or English

Hi — this is a helper from Maya's school. The school noticed Maya's missed five days. I'm not here to get her in trouble; I'm here to help with whatever's making mornings hard. Want to try?

yes. the bus on route 12 keeps not showing up

Route 12's been cut back since August. Your family qualifies for a free student transit pass, and the 7:10 city bus from Pine and 3rd gets her there by 7:40. Reply YES and I'll file the pass.

YES. does the school see this?

No. The school only sees what it asked about: whether Maya is getting to school. This stays between us unless you say otherwise.

The school sees attendance improve. It never sees the thread.

The helper is theirs.

It finishes the whole thing.

Not just the form: the card activated, the appointment booked, the services delivered. It goes where the task goes, the county, the health plan, the state.

It answers to them.

It never tells the school a family's reasons, and no institution can pay to be recommended.

They can say no.

Nothing is filed or sent without a yes on that exact action. Stop, and it stops.

It's already in their pocket.

Text or WhatsApp, whichever they already use. Nothing to download, and nothing new for your staff.

It stays with them.

If they want it to. When a fund, a clinic or a college later offers the same person a helper, they can bring theirs.

The evidence that help, not information, is what moves outcomes:

No one has run this trial with families of school-age children: one helper, the family's own, finishing the form instead of mailing it. Ours is built to be it: offered school by school, measured against the schools not yet offered, so by June you know.

First we read how you're funded.

Your funding formula and your records, line by line: every dollar that depends on something in a person's life. The number comes first, free.

Then it rehearses on last year.

It runs on last year's records first. You see who it would have reached and what it would have said, then decide when it's ready.

You offer it. The family says yes.

A fifth absence, a missing form, or a member turning 65 sends an offer from you in their language. Your staff see only the cases that need a person.

Schools pay per student.

$5.60 a student a year, and $2.40 more only if numbers the district certifies to the state move: its low-income count or funded attendance. A fund pays a fifth of the premiums the state now pays instead of it.

Then anywhere money depends on a person.

We call the gap stranded alignment: outcomes an institution and a person both want, that nobody could afford to pursue one person at a time. The same helper already has a second sponsor: New York union funds, whose retirees qualify for a state program that pays their Medicare premium instead of the fund. The institutions change. The person keeps the helper, if they choose to.

Now, CaliforniaSchool districtscounts, attendance, consents

Now, New YorkUnion benefit fundsPart B premiums

NextCommunity health centersMedicaid renewals

NextHospitalsreadmissions

NextCommunity collegescompletion

Then institutions build for it. A county, a health plan or a college publishes what it needs from families, and the helper finishes it with them. They can pay for an application finished. They can never pay to be recommended.

Built by Mitch Howard and Sarah Xu.

Mitch spent four years in Providence ESL classrooms and a Fulbright year teaching in Mexico, then ran private-equity partnerships at Clay, where he worked with Sarah. We started Mycelium because the help that works was never affordable, and now it is.

Now you can see it.

Districts: send us your filings and within a week we send back what's recoverable, by line. Funds: send your Part B reimbursement count.

Write to the founders