Accelerate the youth revolution. For good.
A Crisis. An Opportunity. A Challenge.
1 in 7 young people worldwide is living with a mental health condition, with 50% beginning before age 14 (WHO). Youth mental health is one of the defining challenges of our time.
New approaches continue to emerge from the same places: institutions, clinicians, and systems designed around adult assumptions and needs. Young people aren't leading designing solutions. Only 1% of adolescent mental health research involves young people in its design (British Medical Journal).
What if we gave young people the resources to design their own solutions? What insights might surface? What innovations have we never imagined because we never made space for them? Those closest to problems are best positioned to solve them.
Introducing the Youth Mental Health Challenge, a global initiative that puts young people in the driver's seat, backed by catalytic capital, community, and the belief that the next breakthroughs in mental health are already out there, waiting to be found & funded.
meet rivet
expanding youth-led social innovation.
overview
For decades, the philanthropic community has been at the forefront of social innovation - providing critical resources to visionaries, movements, and networks that are boldly redefining and rebuilding the world.
Over the past five years, the world has been waking up to the historic and transformative role that leaders with lived experience play in the social innovation space. Too often overlooked in favor of more established and connected players, these leaders bring a vital lens to critical issues and are an essential part of the impact ecosystem.
For no group has this exclusion been more true (and more damaging) than young leaders from underserved communities. Often dismissed as “victims,” “problems,” or “the future,” youth have, in fact, been the key driver of significant social change over the past 120 years (Deloitte, 2015).
the need
There are over 1.8 billion young people across the globe, hungry to change the world. While high-profile leaders like Greta Thunberg make headlines, they represent only a sliver of this generation's passion and talent. Millions more have vision and solutions, but lack the resources to bring their ideas to fruition.
Over 85% of young people live in “capital deserts”: places where they do not have access to the financial or social capital to turn their ideas into action (UNICEF, 2020). Of the $650 billion given away philanthropically each year, less than .002% is invested in early-stage, youth-created and youth-led organizations (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2023). If you dig deeper into those data, and focus on youth who have lived experience with the problems they are solving, that percentage drops to a mere .0001%.
Fellowships, pitch competitions and accelerators offer some opportunity to young social innovators. But not only are these extremely limited, they are the 50th step in a changemaker’s journey, not the first. There is a systemic issue where talented social innovators have no access to small, start-up grants to turn their ideas into action.
our solution
RIVET is the world’s first youth-focused micro-funding platform to provide those essential “first funds” to youth (under 30) with brilliant ideas who, due to demographics and geography, would otherwise never be able to launch a new social venture.
Over the next decade, this “last-mile” philanthropy model will invest in a million new social entrepreneurs with small but powerful start-up grants (under $1,000), followed by additional funding for projects with promising results.
To distribute these grants, RIVET is tapping into the existing $11T youth development infrastructure (OECD, 2024; UNICEF, 2023; WorldBank, 2024) and deputizing youth workers, educators, aid workers and health care leaders to be local talent scouts and mentors. These 26 million youth workers, across 190 countries, identify and support youth with promising ideas that have yet to get off the ground. Through our partners, we are able to collect data on demographics, project impacts and benefits of participating in youth changemaking.
The Red Cross, City Year, Scouts (World Association), World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, YMCA & YWCA (global), Peace First, and UNLEASH are among our global partners. Other interested partners include: Communities in Schools, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and 4-H.
our differentiated approach
RIVET occupies the “missing middle” of the global funding landscape — the critical but chronically under-resourced space between inspiration and investability. We are the first check, serving innovators before they are polished, because the world cannot afford to wait.
01 — We go to youth, not the other way around.
We leverage hyper-local youth development networks to identify invisible talent: youth who would never self-select into a traditional application process.
02 — We fund traction and agency, not polish.
Our vetting assesses what a young person has already mobilized despite limited resources by rewarding initiative, resilience, and community-rooted problem solving.
03 — Money alone is rarely enough. We pair it with mentorship.
Every dollar of RIVET capital is paired with social capital (mentorship & coaching) and human capital (skills coaching), ensuring youth build something lasting, not just spend a grant.
04 — We use a sustainable funding model.
An innovative and financially sustainable model where RIVET funds are raised through GenZ purchasing power.
our proof of concept
RIVET has spent four years building the infrastructure, relationships, and evidence to prove this model works and the results speak for themselves. 1,200+ youth-led projects funded across 79 countries impacting over 2 million people. 98% of grantees come from under-resourced and underrepresented communities and 73% have direct, lived experience with the issues they are solving.
Youth mental health is a top issue for the young innovators we are supporting. We have funded dozens of projects across five continents and helping tens of thousands of young people.
100% of grantees came away believing they can and should make a difference and for every dollar RIVET invests, five dollars of additional resources are unlocked for young innovators through our partner network.
Our impact measurement tools, developed in collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, track outcomes against the SDGs and measure the social-emotional and leadership development of every grantee.
the youth mental health challenge
Mobilizing Youth Mental Health Innovators Worldwide
our TRACK RECORD IN youth MENTAL HEALTH
RIVET has run several pilots to find and fund an initial set of youth-led innovations for positive mental health. Built with youth innovators across 5 continents, their insights shape every aspect of our design.
This is what we learned:
Mental health is everyone’s issue.IIt cuts across education, inclusion, climate, and social cohesion. It is never standalone and the solutions can't be either.
Proximity is the competitive advantage.Youth-led projects outperform top-down programs in trust, cultural fit, and engagement. Lived experience isn't incidental. It’s the differentiator.
Young People Aren’t Asking for More Apps. Connection has been outsourced. Youth are building it back.
Andrew Chang | Nunchi Health
Andrew Chang founded Nunchi Health to close cultural gaps in mental health care for immigrant and minority youth. The nonprofit trains young people to lead peer healing circles that address stigma and isolation, reaching 16,000+ students since 2023.
USA
Setara Bakhtiari | Safe Minds
Setara founded Safe Minds to reach Afghan girls living under displacement and restriction. The online platform offers culturally sensitive mental health education, resilience tools, and peer connection and reminding girls they aren't alone.
PAKISTAN / AFGHANISTAN
the Youth Mental health challenge
VISION
The first global initiative to fund, mentor, and scale youth-led mental health solutions across every region, culture, and community that existing systems don’t reach.
WHAT GETS UNLEASHED
A global call for youth-designed mental health solutions, including:
TIMEFRAME
September 29, 2026: Campaign unveiled at RIVETCON in front of global funders, partners, and press.
October 10, 2026: Applications open worldwide on World Mental Health Day.
October - December: 1,000 initial ideas funded & supported.
January - April: 100 projects selected for second round funding and supported.
May 2027: 10 breakthrough ideas selected and featured in a Solutions-Festival held in connection with Mental Health Awareness Month.
the case for partnership
WHY RIVET
RIVET funds the young people designing mental health programs before they’re polished, connected, or credentialed. Your investment goes further, moves faster, and reaches communities that other funding has never touched.
WHAT WE CAN BUILD TOGETHER
The first global infrastructure for youth-led mental health innovation that is designed with your vision and priorities at the center and built to generate learning that sharpens the entire field. We tailor the program to the issues, geographies (local, national, global), and communities that you care about.
WHERE FOCUS MEETS FLEXIBILITY
We go deep on key themes that have emerged in our work from preserving ancestral wisdom to solving for the effects of social media, but our model is built for the spaces in between: where issues converge and where young people are already building solutions that don't fit neatly into any single category. Neither do we. If you see your work here, you belong. The next breakthrough in youth mental health is already out there. Come join us.
Thank you
For helping us �accelerate the youth revolution.