Story by Lindsey Schmidt.
Project R3con is not fighting skepticism from the Special Operations community.
It’s fighting numbers.
“We’re fighting for funding,” Anna Richardson, the organization’s CEO, said bluntly. “That’s the story. How absolutely difficult it is to secure funding for something of this magnitude.”
Project R3con says it may be the only nonprofit focused specifically on funding stem cell therapy for traumatic brain injury (TBI) within the Special Operations community. That magnitude carries a $450,000 price tag for a 30-participant treatment protocol and the data collection that follows. In the world of medical research, that number is modest. In the world of philanthropy, it’s steep. Project R3con was founded by Travis Wilson, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces veteran, whose personal recovery through stem cell therapy inspired him to help others heal.
“In the scheme of what it can cost to potentially heal somebody, especially their brain, $15,000 does not feel like a big price tag,” she said. “But when you’re asking for philanthropic dollars, it is a mountain to climb.”
The challenge isn’t that donors doubt the mission. She says no one who hears their case questions its value. Brain health affects the warrior, the spouse, and the kids. It shapes marriages, careers, readiness, and, in too many cases, suicide risk. The issue is competition. There are many worthy veteran organizations doing meaningful work. Project R3con is simply competing for the same limited pool of dollars.
But it is not competing with anyone doing the same work.
“There’s nobody else that’s doing what we’re doing in terms of a nonprofit funding stem cell therapy for the Special Operations Force (SOF) community battling traumatic brain injury,” she said. “There is no competition.”
Before launching, Richardson had spent years working in the nonprofit space and often advised against starting new organizations unless there was a clear gap. She knew how difficult the work would be. But she believed in founder Travis Wilson’s vision and saw that no one else was doing what they set out to do.
Photo: Project R3con team Anna Richardson (CEO) and Travis Wilson (founder) speaking with the Secretary of the Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins during SHOT Show 2026.
Other organizations serve the SOF community extraordinarily well, many of them addressing mental health. But they don’t fund stem cell therapy for TBI. “We really wanted to make sure we weren’t doing something that somebody else was already doing,” she said. “We are not a replacement. We are a complementary resource.”
Then comes the catch-22.
To qualify for federal funding or major grants, organizations must demonstrate outcomes. Hard metrics. Proof.
But to generate that proof, they need funding first.
“We’re looking for that startup support, that foundational support,” she explained. “But you can’t get that support until you’ve already done the work. And we can’t do the work without funding.”
Right now, philanthropy is carrying the effort.
With early donor support, Project R3con funded treatment for several Special Operations personnel and began collecting structured outcome data. Participants complete assessments at baseline, then at 7, 30, 60, 90, and 180 days. They track cognitive symptoms such as word finding and memory recall, physical symptoms like balance and headaches, and overall impact on daily life.
She is careful not to oversell early results. “It’s not statistically significant,” she emphasized. “But it is absolutely humanly significant.”
One of the first recipients was a retired Green Beret now working in law enforcement while navigating marital strain and changing family dynamics. He reported fewer emotional triggers and improved ability to regulate responses. Word finding remains a concern, and that’s being tracked.
Another participant, an active duty SOF member with a deployment pending, reported improvements in short-term memory and word recall during high-stakes conversations and briefings.
“At seven days, he reported clearer thoughts, improved sleep, and increased energy,” she said. “At 30 days, he said his short-term memory recall and ability to find words during high-stakes conversations improved.”
For someone preparing to deploy into strategic engagements, that matters.
“You can be a door kicker with an injured brain,” she said. “But they want, and are, so much more than that. Let’s not have them lose that.”
The organization is also watching federal developments closely. The BEACON Act, bipartisan legislation introduced to expand research and support for traumatic brain injury through the VA, could eventually provide funding pathways. But again, hard numbers are required.
If given the choice between applicants with documented metrics and a newer organization still building its data set, grant decision-makers will understandably choose the proven entity.
That’s the bind.
Richardson is realistic about the path forward. They are targeting donors who understand frontier medicine, root-cause treatment, and long-term impact. Military-minded business leaders. People willing to look beyond symptom management and toward regenerative potential.
“We don’t want band-aids,” she said. “We want a solution.”
She also understands the stakes beyond medicine. Untreated TBI can derail marriages, careers, and transitions out of service. A struggling operator may leave the military only to discover cognitive challenges limit civilian employment, reinforcing internal narratives of failure. For some, that spiral of cognitive decline, isolation, and lost identity can deepen into suicidal thoughts.
For now, Project R3con is building credibility one case at a time. Collecting data. Refining protocols. Sharing early impact reports with clear disclaimers. Seeking donors who believe that brain health for the SOF community is not optional.
“We believe in it,” she said. “We’re from the community. Every dollar is respected. Every person is respected.”
The early results suggest what may be possible. What happens next depends on whether others are willing to invest in proving it at scale.
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Project R3con (PR3) is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit that helps currently serving and veteran special operations personnel access stem cell therapy to treat moderate to severe TBIs.
https://projectr3con.org/
Top image: Project R3con.
