A Visionary Commitment to Mental Health & Suicide Prevention

William and Dana Starling are the inspiration for the Suicide Prevention Institute. In September 2022, they made a visionary gift to the Department of Psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine. This gift is what founded the Suicide Prevention Institute and began its work.

An Intentional Commitment

The Starlings’ gift to UNC was a major and intentional commitment to advance mental health. It came after their family faced the devastating loss of their sons Tyler and Gregory to suicide. The Starlings channeled their grief into making a difference by helping others. Their vision was to create meaningful efforts to prevent other families from facing this unimaginable situation.

“Our two children are gone, and it’s important to recognize their wonderful, short lives,” says William Starling. “I’m not sure how else to better do that than to help other families who may be struggling with their own children down the road. We want to recognize our children, and this is a special way to do that.”

A Connection to the UNC Campus

William Starling is a 1975 graduate of UNC. He has always been a steadfast supporter of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Alongside a successful career in business and life sciences, he has remained connected and active with Kenan-Flagler in several ways.

During his time on campus as a student, Starling met Cal Atwood. He was the director of MBA admissions for Kenan-Flagler. They forged a lifelong friendship and bond. Atwood was a mentor and helped put Starling on a path to career success. That connection is the inspiration for the Starlings’ visionary commitment to mental health.

Part of that vision is the importance of establishing meaningful connections. The goal is to push beyond simply transactional relationships between college students, faculty and staff.

“I think fostering these relationships gives people a chance to lean on somebody if they need to. It encourages relationships that would not have been possible before,” says Starling. “That’s hopefully us doing our little part, because sometimes people just don’t have anybody to talk to.”

“We hope that starting this will be a very important initiative, one that will not only help people at UNC but across the nation.”

A Vision for Effective Suicide Prevention

Ever since the Starlings’ made their gift, the Suicide Prevention Institute has worked to make their vision a reality. It supports research to better understand the neurobiology of suicide and what may cause it. It helps identify and scale effective strategies and programs to prevent it. And it reaches out to share information and engage people, organizations and communities at the local level.

“It feels good to give back to a great cause,” Starling added. “The Suicide Prevention Institute is something that needs to be done. It’s a very high priority and it will go beyond just us or any one gift. Our world is full of so much uncertainty, and having some stability will hopefully help people in the future better cope with mental health issues. It’s a crisis all over the world, and Dana and I are very happy to be able to support this very important initiative.”

An Impact in North Carolina and Beyond

The vision of the Suicide Prevention Institute is to unite North Carolina to make suicide prevention a common goal for all residents. Some of its work centers on science and ways to build, test, and scale strategies to prevent suicide. And at the same time, it also works to address the mental health needs that often go hand-in-hand with suicide risk.

“There are so many stories I’ve heard. Dozens and dozens of emails and text messages and calls,” says Starling. “The common theme is that so many people have mental health challenges in their lives. Many who know me say what I didn’t know is that their children, parents, siblings, uncles, aunts or spouses struggle with mental illness. We’re making a big effort to make a huge difference here on campus. Carolina can be a pioneer.”