Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing
Youth Mental
Health & Wellbeing
Global
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK)
DRK finds, funds and supports exceptional leaders with innovative and highly impactful ideas that have the potential to scale. DRK provides unrestricted capital, and, most importantly, provides rigorous, ongoing support by joining the board of directors and partnering with the leader to help build capacity in the organization and scale their impact. In particular, Enlight Foundation supports DRK’s selection of mental health and wellbeing-focused organizations.
Force of Nature *
Force of Nature is a youth organization that helps young people turn eco-anxiety (climate change-related anxiety) into agency and develop the skills to become powerful climate advocates. In their flagship training program, young people develop public speaking skills, learn to advise influential figures such as corporate leaders, and gain the ability to lead training programs for their peers. Force of Nature also produces research, resources, and campaigns that enable people of all ages to understand and act on their eco-anxiety. Their programs are creating the next generation of activists who are prepared to catalyze climate action.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Koko *
Koko’s AI technology intervenes when young people encounter potentially harmful content online. They partner with major platforms like TikTok and Tumblr to intercept harmful content, and then redirect users to evidence-based interventions like helplines, peer support groups, or self-help courses that can be accessed with a single click. They work across 50+ countries.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Safe Online for Mental Health *
Safe Online for Mental Health is a new global initiative within the Fund to End Violence Against Children, which was launched in 2016 alongside the UN Secretary-General. It is currently the only global entity focused solely on Sustainable Development Goal 16.2 that aims to end all forms of violence against children by 2030. Safe Online is collaborating with the World Health Organization to implement the first-ever global guidelines aimed at protecting young people’s mental health online. Safe Online will be responsible for raising and deploying $100 million in grants to scale trusted solutions for digital mental health and for mobilizing the partnerships required to implement the guidelines worldwide. This work hopes to lead to a cooperative, global effort to implement online guidelines, reform policy across countries, and enable tech solutions to meet young people’s needs globally.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
World Health Organization *
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the preeminent global health organization responsible for everything from guiding government health ministries to providing direct healthcare in local communities. The Department of Mental Health, Brain Health, and Substance Abuse oversees all of WHO’s mental health-related activities. WHO is now developing the first-ever global guidelines that outline how to promote and protect young people’s mental health online. As the global health authority, WHO’s guidelines would be used and trusted by governments in a majority of the world’s countries to truly impact youth worldwide.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Multi-region
Artolution *
Artolution uses art as a tool for social change and healing. They provide collaborative art-making experiences in communities affected by conflict, displacement, and trauma to foster collective healing. Their approach involves working closely with local artists and youth to create murals, sculptures, and other art forms that reflect and address the issues facing their communities. Such forms of art-making have been found to be an effective way to help young people process their experiences and create a sense of community in their new environments. They work in Uganda, Bangladesh, Jordan, Colombia and the US.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Ember *
Ember is a regranter focused on mental health at the local level that works across Africa, Asia and Latin America. They select locally-led mental health initiatives and mentor them over a 12 to 24-month period, providing funding and in-kind support based on the specific organization’s needs (e.g., strategy, communications, impact evaluation, etc.). The supported organizations provide accessible, high-quality mental healthcare to underserved communities.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
EMpower *
EMpower is a regranter focused on mental health at the local level that works in India, Turkey, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. They invest in locally driven organizations using a trust-based, long-term, and flexible funding model. The organizations they support focus on three essential elements for young people’s success: inclusive learning, economic well being, and safe, healthy lives. The mental health grantees who EMpower funds provide psychosocial support and programs to build young people’s resilience and self-esteem, as well as critical thinking, problem-solving, conflict resolution, and stress management skill sets.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Grassroot Soccer *
Grassroot Soccer uses soccer as a tool to address the holistic health of young people and empower them with lifesaving health information. Their dedicated mental health program, MindSKILLZ, is a 12-session curriculum that addresses sensitive topics like stress, anxiety, depression, and emotional regulation. Through the sessions, young people learn coping mechanisms and are encouraged to break down the stigmas surrounding mental health. Grassroot Soccer runs their MindSKILLS program across several African countries and partners with governments and local health organizations to expand the program’s reach.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Girl Effect
Girl Effect supports adolescent girls and young women to make informed choices and changes in their lives, enabling them to take control of their bodies, health, education, and futures. They work with various stakeholders, including girl researchers, creators, champions, and advisors as well as technical experts, partners, and government structures, to inspire girls, co-develop solutions, and connect them to support and services for improved health, education, and livelihoods. One suite of tools they are developing is AI chatbots to support girls’ sexual/reproductive health as well as their mental health and wellbeing.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Healing Together *
Healing Together trains community leaders like health workers, educators, and youth workers on mental health and healing practices to disrupt cycles of trauma and harm, and better support young people. They train these leaders with skills in trauma-informed mental healthcare, emotional first aid (addressing emotional injuries when they occur so they do not become more damaging long term), and building community resilience. Participants who complete the training gain the skills needed to support individuals who have experienced trauma, recognize the link between the body and mind in stress management, and create a safe and supportive environment. They work in Uganda, Nepal, and the US.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Luta Pela Paz *
Luta Pela Paz uses boxing and martial arts—in combination with programs focusing on education, employability, mentorship, and personal development—to empower young people in communities affected by violence. Luta Pela Paz’s primary initiative is their Community of Care program, which trains young people to act as champions for good mental health and share mental wellbeing educational content with their peers. The program also trains school professionals in communities with high levels of violence to provide mental health support and advocates for increased government investment in mental health support for low-income, high-violence communities. Luta Pela Paz works in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Cape Verde.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
WorldBeing *
WorldBeing focuses on delivering evidence-based resilience and wellbeing training to marginalized youth (particularly girls and young women) in low- and middle-income countries. They also train teachers to embed social-emotional learning programs into school curriculums. Through weekly sessions in schools, young people learn skills to strengthen their resilience, wellbeing, and overall health, helping youth thrive despite challenging circumstances.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Asia & Australia
Labhya *
Labhya integrates wellbeing and social-emotional learning programs into public school systems in India. These programs equip young people with essential skills like resilience, empathy, and relationship building, while also addressing mental health challenges like anxiety, loneliness, and depression. Ultimately, the programs assist in enhancing overall academic performance. Labhya collaborates with governments on program implementation, with the aim of improving the emotional resilience and learning capacity of millions of vulnerable children.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Orygen *
Orygen is dedicated to transforming youth mental health through pioneering research, clinical services, and policy advocacy. The organization focuses on early intervention and treatment for mental health issues like psychosis, depression, and anxiety in young people. They also emphasize digital mental health solutions, education, and partnerships with youth to shape better mental healthcare systems. Their Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia Youth Mental Health Fellowship trains young people in low- and middle-income countries to become mental health advocates and provides them with support, expert mentoring, and peer networking. Ultimately, Orygen’s work aims to empower young people to recover and thrive as they transition into adulthood.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Our Herd *
OurHerd is a storytelling app that empowers young people to safely share their personal experiences of mental health challenges through a monitored platform. By encouraging peer-to-peer storytelling, the platform fosters community and helps young people who are experiencing these challenges to feel less isolated. The platform also amplifies youth voices to inspire positive change in mental health systems; OurHerd uses AI to capture quantitative and qualitative data that is then shared with decision-makers in government and mental healthcare systems, allowing the voices and perspectives of young people to be integrated into policy change and mental health services.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
North America
As We Are
As We Are is a nonprofit organization in the process of developing a mobile app to offer evidence-based mental health and wellbeing support that speaks to the unique developmental and cultural needs of young Asian Americans. Their mission is to support young Asian Americans to feel accepted and to know within that they are whole as they are.
Black Girls Smile *
Black Girls Smile supports the mental health and emotional wellbeing of Black girls and young women. The organization provides access to a range of resources (such as mental health education, access to therapy, wellbeing workshops, and safe, supportive community spaces) specifically aimed at addressing the unique challenges faced by Black girls and young women. Through their programs, Black Girls Smile helps participants navigate their mental health journeys and build a strong, resilient foundation for their futures.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Children’s Health Council (CHC)
Children’s Health Council’s mission is to transform young lives by providing culturally-responsive best-in-class services for learning differences and mental health to families from diverse backgrounds regardless of language, location or ability to pay. This includes in-person services in the Silicon Valley region as well as a robust online resource library accessible to all.
#Halfthestory *
#HalfTheStory is empowering the next generation to build healthy relationships with technology by educating youth on better digital habits and training them to advocate for policy changes that will make for a safer digital future. Through educational programs, advocacy, and community initiatives, they help teens understand the impact of their digital habits on their mental health. Specifically, their flagship program, Social Media U, helps teens balance tech use with emotional health. The organization also advocates for digital wellbeing as a fundamental right.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
HopeLab *
Hopelab is a social innovation lab and impact investor that supports the mental wellbeing of adolescents ages 10–25, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ youth. As a regranter, Hopelab collects funds from donors and distributes them to a diverse set of organizations working at the intersection of youth mental wellbeing, technology, and social media. Their Responsible Youth Technology Power Fund supports youth-led projects that shape how technology impacts society, emphasizing ethical tech use, digital rights, and inclusion. The Responsible Youth Technology Power Fund aims to empower young people and their communities to take part in shaping the future of technology.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Inseparable *
Inseparable builds movements that advocate for evidence-based policies and expand access to mental health support in the United States. The organization provides governors, as well as state and federal legislators, with research, testing, polling results, and legislative guides to help implement data-driven policy change. Additionally, Inseparable releases reports with state-level data and conducts public opinion research to ensure lawmakers, advocacy groups, and activists have the information they need to create effective, inclusive policies. Finally, Inseparable facilitates networks of policymakers and activists, ensuring that supportive cohorts of peers can build momentum collectively.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Roca *
Roca, Inc. focuses on disrupting the cycle of incarceration and poverty for young people. The organization provides direct mental health support (based on proven cognitive behavioral therapy approaches) to those impacted by urban violence in the United States. Roca, Inc. also equips the institutions that surround young people—like police forces, child protective services, and court systems—to effectively support the mental health challenges they may face.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Weird Enough Productions *
Weird Enough Productions uses comic books that feature a cast of diverse superheroes (in combination with a classroom curriculum) to teach young people how to manage their emotions and become informed consumers and creators of media. Their Get Media L.I.T. (Learn, Inquire, Transform) program helps young people develop the skills to critically assess digital content and combat misinformation and media stereotypes. “Learn” introduces concepts like modeling healthy emotional expression and developing social media savvy. “Inquire” promotes critical thinking around how social media affects emotional wellness, media’s impact on popular beliefs, and detecting falsehoods online. “Transform” encourages students to apply their knowledge to their own media creation and civic engagement.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
The Climate Resilience Initiative
This grant supports the UC Climate Resilience Initiative. The Initiative’s anchor program is a college course taught on all ten UC campuses that is designed to promote hope, collective empowerment, and a map for individual climate action projects integrated within our communities. This course has well-known professors as faculty leaders at 10 UC campuses, who lead their local in-person experiential sessions. The initiative is co-directed by Drs. Jyoti Mishra of UCSD and Elissa Epel of UCSF, two leaders at the intersection of climate change and mental health, and co-leaders of the UC-wide Center for Climate, Health and Equity: Mental Health Initiative.
Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin—Madison
Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison seeks to make the world a kinder, wiser, more compassionate place where transforming your mind not only improves your own well-being, but cascades to the well-being of others in your community and around the globe. The center conducts rigorous scientific research to bring new insights aimed at improving the well-being of people of all backgrounds and ages and answer the question, “What constitutes a healthy mind?” The Center takes pride in being a global hub for innovations in affective and contemplative neuroscience in addition to well-being across the lifespan. This grant supports the expansion of a 15-week, accredited college course developed at the Center called the Art and Science of Human Flourishing (ASHF) to reach other campuses that want to offer it.
Foundation for Art and Healing
Founded by Dr. Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH, Foundation for Art & Healing addresses national health concerns by partnering with community-based organizations to develop research-based and tested, creative expression programs that help improve personal and public health. Its signature national initiative, Project UnLonely, seeks to address the growing public health concern of social isolation and chronic loneliness. Project UnLonely has three goals: to raise awareness of loneliness and its negative physical and mental health effects, to destigmatize loneliness, and to make programming available to address loneliness. This grant enables Foundation for Art & Healing to focus on working with colleges and universities to develop specialized expertise and support to address social connection and loneliness for college students.
CalMatters
CalMatters is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable. It is the only journalism outlet dedicated to covering America’s biggest state, 39 million Californians and the world’s fifth largest economy. This grant supports CalMatters to partner with CatchLight on a mental health reporting initiative to specifically shine a spotlight on the mental health challenges people in California face, solutions that are working, and what more could be done.
CatchLight
CatchLight is a visual-first media organization that leverages the power of visual storytelling to inform, connect, and transform communities. CatchLight Local is a scalable, collaborative model to help advance visual representation in local news. Their Local Fellowship program subsidizes full-time visual journalism positions in local and regional newsrooms, enhancing their reporting and engaging more residents around critical issues in their communities. CatchLight’s Local Visual Desk offers visual services, tools, and expertise to strengthen our newsroom partners as trusted messengers. The CatchLight Global Fellowship program recognizes globally acclaimed innovators in visual storytelling with financial awards to support their work. This grant supports CatchLight to partner with CalMatters on a mental health reporting initiative to specifically shine a spotlight on the mental health challenges people in California face, solutions that are working, and what more could be done.
Active Minds*
Active Minds mobilizes youth and young adults to transform mental health norms across society. Now in more than 1,000 campuses and communities, they empower passionate student advocates and directly reach more than 1.9 million people each year through awareness campaigns, events, advocacy, outreach, and more. Additional Active Minds’ programs include Send Silence Packing®, an award-winning suicide prevention display; Active Minds Speakers, a curated group of professional storytellers and presenters who provide encouraging and safe mental health education for students and other audiences; the Healthy Campus Award, which honors colleges that are prioritizing student health and well-being; and the newly launched Active Minds @Work offerings to build a mental health culture in the workplace. Active Minds’ consistent message is that mental health needs to be talked about as easily as physical health.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Education and Economic Mobility Co-Lab.
Hopebound *
Hopebound’s goal is to eradicate barriers to access and revolutionize the world of mental health care. Hopebound aims to create space for every young person to show up as their whole selves along their journey to wellness. They provide weekly, video-based teletherapy to under-resourced middle school and high school students at no or low-cost. In addition to working directly with families, they partner with schools and afterschool programs in Georgia to support adolescents through affordable and proven therapy interventions.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Education and Economic Mobility Co-Lab.
MindRight *
MindRight provies culturally-responsive and trauma-informed mental health coaching. Their coaches work to support members who are dealing with stress and trauma. Their system is designed to help manage the emotional tolls life has for all of us. Unlike crisis response, we reach out proactively everyday to help prevent crisis, and we stick with members during and after crisis.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Education and Economic Mobility Co-Lab.
Trails *
Trails equips school staff with the training and resources they need to provide evidence-based and culturally responsible programming to their students. Aligned with the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework common in schools nationwide, Trails’ programs are flexible, modular, and designed to complement services schools may already have in place. They partner with schools to determine which programs are right for them, guide their staff through training, and provide everything they need—from lesson plans to support calls—to deliver and sustain programming long-term.
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*Fund through ICONIQ Education and Economic Mobility Co-Lab.
Solutions Journalism Network
Solutions journalism investigates and explains, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems. While journalists usually define news as “what’s gone wrong,” solutions journalism tries to expand that definition: Responses to problems are also newsworthy. By adding rigorous coverage of solutions, journalists can tell the whole story. In particular, Enlight Foundation’s support enables special focus on solutions journalism related to youth mental health and wellbeing.​
Africa
Strong Minds *
StrongMinds provides adolescents and women from under-resourced communities across Uganda, Zambia, and Kenya with free, in-person group therapy focused on treating depression. Over six sessions, trained counselors help participants identify their underlying triggers of depression, examine how their interpersonal relationships and depression symptoms are linked, strategize solutions to their problems, learn coping mechanisms, practice interpersonal skills, and identify support structures that they can continue to lean on after therapy has ended. StrongMinds also offers phone-based approaches to depression treatment, integrates their therapy programs into schools, and implements their programming through partner organizations—all of which increases the reach and scalability of their model.
*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
War Child *
War Child offers comprehensive mental health support to young people affected by war, including sports-based group therapy and community training to identify and assist those struggling with mental health challenges. War Child also focuses on children’s rights overall (including the right to learn and the right to have food, water, and a safe home) as these are inextricably linked to young people’s right to mental health. They apply pressure on governments and other influential actors to maintain these protections. War Child provides support in conflict zones including Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.
*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Waves for Change *
Waves for Change provides an evidence-based surf therapy program for young people experiencing trauma and poverty. The program combines the health benefits of surfing with activities that support the mental health and wellbeing of young people. Participants develop skills to help them foster healthy relationships, understand and manage their emotions, and build resilience. Waves for Change works in South Africa, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Sudan.
*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Europe & Middle East
AMNA *
Amna is a refugee-led organization committed to training community organizations and individuals on how to deliver therapeutic care and create safe spaces for people impacted by conflict and displacement. Amna establishes community hubs in regions with large refugee populations, supporting local partner organizations through grants and up to three years of training on trauma-sensitive therapeutic care. Separately, they train local governments, international nongovernmental organizations, educators, teachers, legal professionals, social workers, and health workers to integrate mental health knowledge into workforces. Their work creates safe spaces for emotional recovery and provides tools for rebuilding resilience, managing stress, and fostering a sense of belonging for displaced populations.
*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab
Reclaim Childhood *
Reclaim Childhood is an organization dedicated to empowering young girls and women through sports and play. Their programs create safe and inclusive spaces for refugees and local girls living in Jordan to engage in physical activities, strengthen their self-confidence, and build cross-cultural connections. Each weekly sports practice combines learning a specific sports skill with learning a social skill, like communication, bullying prevention, and leadership. Mothers are heavily involved in the programs to encourage full-family participation in physically and mentally healthy lifestyles, and the coaches are all refugee women.
*Fund through ICONIQ Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Co-Lab