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ICONIQ Impact Announces Grantees of Collaborative Philanthropy Fund Aiming to Mobilize $200M for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing

ICONIQ Impact's Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab is supporting 25 organizations that are addressing youth anxiety and depression around the world.

, /PRNewswire/ -- Today, ICONIQ Impact, ICONIQ Capital's platform for collaborative philanthropy, announced the grantees of the Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab—a collaborative philanthropy fund that aims to mobilize $200 million to support organizations addressing youth anxiety and depression around the world.

The Co-Lab is kicking off with $112 million in donations from eight philanthropic donors and will support 25 grantee organizations with unrestricted funding over five years.

A Syrian girl in Azraq Refugee Camp, Jordan, finds joy and healing through Artolution’s collaborative art.

"This Co-Lab is boldly supporting organizations addressing critical but often neglected areas of youth mental health, like ensuring culturally responsive care for underserved populations and teaching young people how to build healthy relationships with technology," says Xin Liu, philanthropist and anchor donor to the Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab. "We're encouraging other philanthropists to join us in this effort because we have an opportunity and a responsibility to empower the most vital and powerful force this world has—its young people."

The mental health and wellbeing of young people around the world has been declining for nearly two decades. Roughly 20% of youth globally struggle with anxiety, and nearly one in four experience symptoms of depression. Mental health and policy experts agree that global trends like a worsening climate, financial inequity, social media use, and more have created a bleak present—and future—for young people around the world. This is particularly true for young people in the Global South, who often deal with compounding crises like extreme poverty, conflict, and forced migration.

Despite an increased need for support, only 2% of government health funding globally is directed toward mental health, leaving many young people without the care they need. Youth mental health and wellbeing is a prime space for support; every dollar given toward scaling interventions for depression and anxiety returns four times its value in terms of improved health and productivity.

It's against this backdrop that ICONIQ Impact—alongside Xin Liu and other philanthropists in the ICONIQ community—launched the Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab, which will support organizations focused on reducing youth anxiety and depression by (1) giving young people agency, (2) helping them foster a sense of community and belonging, and (3) building their resilience.

Giving young people agency: Economic inequity, climate anxiety, political turmoil, and other societal scale challenges can leave young people feeling powerless and like they lack the ability to control their own circumstances and futures. Co-Lab grantees will help give youth the power and support they need to affect change in their own lives, within their communities, and across society.
- For example, Co-Lab grantee Force of Nature helps young people turn their "eco-anxiety" into climate change activism. In its flagship training program, youth participants develop public speaking skills, learn to advise influential figures such as corporate and government leaders, and gain the ability to lead climate advocacy training programs for their peers.
Helping young people build a sense of community and belonging: Despite being more connected than ever, young people today experience higher levels of loneliness and isolation than any other generation. Co-Lab grantees will help youth cultivate meaningful connections with peers, find a sense of belonging in their chosen communities, and build a purposeful life.
- Co-Lab grantee OurHerd is a storytelling app powered by the youth mental health organization batyr that connects young people with peers experiencing similar mental health challenges in a safe, monitored space. The platform's peer-to-peer storytelling model helps foster a sense of community among youth and lets them know they are not alone. It also shares quantitative and qualitative data with decision-makers in government and mental healthcare systems to help ensure young people's ideas and voices are considered when making policy and programming decisions.
Building young people's resilience: Societal-scale problems and individual crises—like family conflict, poverty, chronic illness, and more—can overwhelm young people, leading to emotional distress and poor mental health. Co-Lab grantees will help build young people's resilience so they can better withstand hardships, failures, and adversity, reducing the likelihood of long-term mental health issues.
- Co-Lab grantee Roca, Inc. helps young people escape cycles of incarceration and poverty by providing direct mental health support to those impacted by violence in the United States. It also instructs the institutions that surround underserved young people—like police forces, child protective services, and court systems—on how to effectively support young people's mental health in these circumstances.

A full list of the 25 grantees can be found here. The Co-Lab will fund organizations across the United States and the Global South. Organizations in the Global South will receive roughly 60% of the Co-Lab's total funding.

"Building up an individual's agency, resilience, and sense of belonging from a young age is foundational to their mental wellbeing over the course of their life," says Matti Navellou, head of ICONIQ Impact. "We are determined to support our grantees in getting these formative tools into the hands of today's youth and creating new pathways for them to shape their own futures."

The Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab sought input from a youth advisory group, which provided critical feedback, insights, and recommendations on the grantee organizations considered for funding. The group consisted of youth representatives from nearly every continent, reflecting a diverse range of genders, ethnicities, and mental health expertise, including research, policy development, and program implementation.

The Co-Lab is currently supported by eight philanthropic donors, who, over the course of several months, have collectively learned about the global youth mental health and wellbeing space from subject-matter experts and have worked alongside them and ICONIQ Impact to source, diligence, and select the Co-Lab's 25 grantee organizations.

To date, ICONIQ Impact has mobilized $112 million for this effort and is inviting additional philanthropists to join this donor community. Philanthropists interested in learning more about or providing additional funding for the Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab should contact ICONIQ Impact at [email protected].

ABOUT ICONIQ IMPACT:

ICONIQ Impact is ICONIQ Capital's platform for collaborative philanthropy. We convene our extraordinary community to tackle some of the world's most complex challenges. Guided by experts and impacted groups, our model lowers the barriers to philanthropy, encourages collective action, and prioritizes learning and equity at each step. We focus our philanthropy on areas where we believe it can be catalytic and where we see an opportunity to inspire additional funding from philanthropists, governments, and the private sector. This means supporting unproven solutions that have the potential to be transformative, such as a new technology, an overlooked approach, or a locally led organization.

ICONIQ Impact Co-Labs are collaborative philanthropy funds addressing urgent challenges facing the world today. Each Co-Lab enables donors to maximize their efficiency through co-funding while learning from experts and leaders of impacted communities.¹

Xin Liu is the co-founder and president of the Enlight Foundation, as well as the director and co-founder of the Xinhe Foundation (previously Xinping Foundation) in China. Her philanthropy is focused on creating equal educational opportunities for children in developing countries, supporting action-driven research that advances education, and investing in young social entrepreneurs and leaders. Xin is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has been published in both the United States and China. She began her career as a writer and photojournalist for China Youth Daily, where she documented women's and children's schooling conditions throughout the mainland. She was later invited to join the Baltimore Sun and has subsequently had her work published in the Miami Herald, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Palm Beach Post, China for Time magazine, Newsweek, Fortune magazine, and more. Through her work, Xin was exposed to education inequality across China and the United States and developed a strong belief that rural poverty can be alleviated through strengthening communities, improving and increasing access to early education, and investing in the next generation.