Resources
Aligning Funding Priorities
With an urgent focus on youth, our Flourish Together initiative is setting forth three interconnected priorities to align and catalyze mental health philanthropy
From Crisis to Opportunity
1 in 4 people experience a mental health condition, yet less than 2% of U.S. philanthropy supports mental health — creating both urgency and opportunity for a shift from awareness to aligned action.
After five years engaging stakeholders, Mindful Philanthropy is uplifting three interconnected strategic priorities to align mental health philanthropy: Youth, Community, and Workforce.
Our ongoing initiative to champion these funding priorities launched in 2025 as Flourish Together: Bold Solutions for Mental Health
Funding Priorities
Youth & Their Support Systems
Philanthropic investment in youth mental health is growing but funding remains fragmented and misaligned with what youth and families say they need. With greater clarity, coordination, and commitment, philanthropy can help convert momentum into meaningful, sustained impact.
Community Well-Being
There is substantial evidence supporting approaches to build connection in communities and to leverage connection as treatment. Organizations are poised to scale these models. Philanthropic investment can fundamentally transform how people access mental health support, experience belonging, and build networks of care.
Behavioral Health Workforce
Improving access and quality to mental health care requires addressing structural barriers to career entry and retention, inefficient workforce deployment, and lack of innovation in workforce models. Now is the time for bold, coordinated investments, with a lens toward long-term systems change.
Youth Mental Health
Focus Areas
With the escalating youth mental health crisis — and over 80% of our network of funders identifying youth as a top interest — we have three critical focus areas for addressing funding for youth mental health.
1. Strong Start to Life
The earliest years, especially the caregiver-infant bond, lay the foundation for healthy development and well-being, making early detection and support critical before concerns escalate. Our approach directs funding toward whole-family support and integrated care solutions that strengthen systems and ensure families have access to timely, culturally responsive mental health services.
When we protect the first 1,000 days, we set a lifelong trajectory toward well-being.
2. Play & Grow
Free play, outdoor exploration, and creative movement give children the practice ground for problem-solving, emotional regulation, and social connection. As unstructured time erodes — replaced by screens, academic pressure, and safety concerns — so too do these protective benefits. Reestablishing play-rich environments is a direct, universally accessible way to bolster mental health and cultivate adaptable, joyful young people.
Play is the world’s simplest, most inclusive mental health intervention.
3. Digital Well-Being
Youth now spend more waking hours in digital spaces than in any physical setting. Social algorithms, 24-hour comparison culture, and AI-generated content can fuel anxiety and isolation, even as technology offers unprecedented opportunities for learning and community. The field must accelerate research, safeguards, and user-centered design principles that transform digital ecosystems into places of genuine connection and growth.
Technology should expand young people’s horizons, not shrink their self-worth.
Framework for Action
Each of the three interconnected mental health priorities and the youth focus areas will be guided by frameworks for action in the years ahead:
Ecosystem Maps – Investment entry points and key players
Strategic Roadmaps – Clear cases, theories of change, and avenues to impact
Portfolios of Solutions – Opportunities for investment and bold bets across levers for impact
Evaluation Frameworks – Co-created goals specific to each youth focus area
Why Now?
The Launch of Shared Measurement of Success
With the publication or the fourth report in our Mental Health at the Center series—Measuring Success in Mental Health Philanthropy—we have a shared framework in place, a set of common goal metrics for what matters most: whether people are living longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives.
The report offers a suite of resources that give funders the confidence and clarity to invest in ways that drive population-level impact and long-term systems change:
Common set of goal metrics indicating whether we’re making progress on mental health at the population-level
A sample measurement framework connecting goal metrics, leading indicators, and cross-sector measures to pathways for flourishing
Key investment types for leveraging the common goal metrics and achieving systems change
A map and template for connecting these investment types to impact
Principles and opportunities to strengthen how the field measures success.
Together, these tools answer the question most often asked by both novice and experienced funders:
“How do I know if I’m having an impact on mental health?”
Join our funder community to learn more.