A non-clinical layer of care that helps veterans rebuild belonging and meaning after service — alongside clinical care, never in place of it.
Sempergeist Institute designs and delivers non-clinical programs that help veterans rebuild belonging and meaning after difficult experience — and is building the evaluation and oversight to hold that work accountable.
A small, mission-driven nonprofit led by a service-disabled veteran founder, building its programs, partnerships, and governance in the open.
Sempergeist Institute is the operating name of Conway Cultural Development Corporation, a 501(c)(3) public charity. We build structured programs that help people rebuild belonging and make meaning from experiences — moral injury, PTSD, complex PTSD, grief, and transition — that resist ordinary language.
Our model is built on partnership. Programs are designed to be delivered by veteran-serving organizations to their own communities, with licensed clinicians overseeing safety and referral, while the Institute provides program design, facilitator training, and the evaluation framework.
Program design
We design non-clinical, meaning-and-belonging programs, train the organizations that deliver them, and are building the ethical oversight and evaluation that hold them accountable. We do not provide therapy, diagnosis, or treatment, and we do not claim to. We are the accountable space alongside care.
Who we serve
Veterans and service communities navigating moral injury, PTSD, complex PTSD, grief, and life transition — with particular attention to those who are not engaged in ongoing clinical care and are hardest to reach through the formal system.
When and where
In the vulnerable windows where structured support thins out — especially the return home after an intensive cohort program — and in the trusted community settings where veterans already are, rather than inside the clinical system.
Poewell
Poewell uses self-authored symbolic imagery to help veterans reconnect with peers without requiring them to relive events or enter the clinical system.
We design so that technology and program structure support human relationships rather than replace them. Programs are delivered through veteran-serving organizations, with licensed clinical oversight for safety and referral, and are offered at no cost to participants.
Accountable by design — and honest about what is still being built.
Veteran-serving organizations deliver, licensed clinicians oversee safety and referral, and the Institute designs, trains, and evaluates.
Our tools structure attention, pacing, and connection without interpreting, diagnosing, or directing meaning.
We are building independent ethical oversight, human-subjects protections, neutral referral, and Veterans Crisis Line integration into every program.
Each program is designed to carry defined goals and an evaluation plan measuring qualitative and quantitative outcomes.
The firewall between the mission organization, the platform owner, and clinical decision-making, stated plainly.
Sempergeist Institute — 501(c)(3)
The mission organization. It designs and delivers programs, holds fiscal responsibility, and is establishing the ethical oversight and evaluation that govern the work.
Penelope Mimetics LLC — SDVOSB
A separate for-profit company, related by common founder and by memorandum of understanding, that owns and develops the Poewell technology platform. Sempergeist licenses or uses the platform to deliver programs; it does not own or build it.
Clinical decisions
Clinical safety and referral decisions are made by licensed clinicians and are firewalled from both the platform owner and the Institute's administrative functions. Program referral routes are neutral and may direct participants to services unaffiliated with either organization.
Founder
Dennis Stevens, Ed.D., is the founder of the Institute and principal of Penelope Mimetics, and — separately — an author whose books appear under his own name. His published work informs the Institute's approach but is not a program of it.
For veteran-serving organizations
If your organization already holds the trust of a veteran community, we provide the program design, facilitator training, and evaluation framework — you deliver to your own people.
Start a conversationWhat your support builds
Contributions fund program design, facilitator training, and the evaluation and ethical-oversight infrastructure that keeps this work accountable. Programs are offered at no cost to participants.
Request a briefingFund the layer of care that sits alongside treatment.
Sempergeist Institute is a 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 47-5065116). Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and programs are offered at no cost to participants.
Give through your DAF
If you hold a donor-advised fund at Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, BNY Mellon, or Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, you can recommend a grant to Conway Cultural Development Corporation (EIN 47-5065116) in a few clicks. Gifts arrive designated to the Poewell VSO Pilot unless you specify otherwise.
Recommend a DAF grant →Opens DAF Direct. Grants are processed by your fund sponsor; Sempergeist receives no account information.