A $4.5M initiative to support youth and intergenerationally-led nonprofit organizations
TL;DR Applications are now open for $2.5M of grants for youth and intergenerationally-led 501(c)(3) organizations working in the responsible tech space on topics like AI, mental health and well-being, and climate change.
Nowadays, the term “responsible technology” can sound like an oxymoron. What’s responsible about technologies that have been designed to scroll content endlessly? Or pull your attention to advertisements for things you recently talked about with your friends? Or even suggesting that we all eat at least one rock per day.
If you’re not familiar with the term, let’s let one of these technologies, ChatGPT, explain to me in non-jargony terms what “responsible technology” means:
ChatGPT explanation of ‘Responsible Technology’
The “making sure technology helps people without causing harm” gets to the crux of the idea – using technology to better our lives. To go a bit deeper, we believe that people and organizations play an important role in this work, by:
- Building, shaping, and stewarding our technology ecosystem in a way that maximizes its positive potential and protects basic human rights.
- Leveraging technology platforms to address social, cultural, political, or environmental problems.
- Ensuring equitable access to the benefits of technology.
- Mitigating the harmful impacts of technology on all communities, including young people.
Our vision for continued support in the responsible technology space
In 2022, a group of philanthropic organizations, including Hopelab, came together with a vision to support youth- and intergenerationally-led organizations that are doing just this—using technology to better lives. The inaugural cohort of 26 organizations has been tackling challenges like social media usage, cyber security and bullying, and community healing. Now, in its second year, the fund is back with an additional $2.5 million to continue supporting these inaugural organizations and open the door for new initiatives and projects in the space.
Applications will be open for the next month for youth and intergenerationally-led 501(c)(3) organizations working on AI, mental health and well-being, and climate change projects in the responsible tech space. These topics sit at the intersection of what young people are expressing as big societal challenges and where the 12 funders behind the fund are hoping to support solutions.
While funding is arguably the most important avenue for foundations like Hopelab to bolster this kind of work, we also believe that offering attention, connection, and support to young leaders can have an outsized impact in these spaces. What does that look like in practice?
👀 Attention
For the fund announcement last year, co-funders, The Archewell Foundation’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, surprised a handful of grantees with the news, generating national and international media attention. This resulted in significantly increased visibility of the cohort, particularly the youth-led organizations, and awareness of responsible technology issues. Here are examples of program impacts from a few of the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund (RTYPF) inaugural members to illustrate the success we hope to see in future cohorts:
- Gen-Z for Change saw its news-related content accumulate over five million views in just two months.
- Cyber Collective surpassed its target for a campaign strategy to support its digital content and increased account reach by 148.2%, with the majority being net new accounts.
- The STEAM Connection surpassed 3,000 Every Kid Gets a Robot applications from teachers and schools in one day, and interest in the organization skyrocketed.
🤝Connection
While many of the RTYPF grantees had the opportunity to connect virtually during semi-monthly Learning Community sessions, the dream to connect in person led us to co-design a one-and-a-half-day convening in New York City. Twenty-four of the 26 grantees were able to send one to three representatives to learn and connect together at Civic Hall in the heart of Manhattan. We celebrated, connected, and dug into topics like collaboration, growth, and narrative building.
Here’s a short video recap of our time together:
