This blog is the second in a series exploring our evolving thinking on the relationships between technology and society. We look forward to learning more about this emerging topic, and to sharing what we learn along the way.

---

How can we harness the power of tech?

As we built robust programs in social and emotional learning and digital learning, we have asked ourselves this question countless times. Technology is everywhere. The line between online and offline life is fading fast. Tech’s power is undeniable; its effect on our individual and collective well-being is trickier to grasp.

In the first article in this series, we explored how the intersection of our SEL and Digital Learning program areas led us to build a new program: Tech and Society. We launched this program with a lot of questions and few answers. We knew we wouldn’t be able to find those answers on our own. So shortly after announcing this program, we began planning a convening of the best and brightest minds who shared our desire for a world both plugged-in and productive. 

Our intent? To surface all of our experiences with tech, both the good and the bad, and draw from them to collectively envision a better future.

To plan this convening, we partnered with Spark’s Jim Cohen and Solon Teal, professional facilitators with extensive backgrounds in technology, business, and human-centered design. From the beginning, Jim and Solon challenged us to think creatively about who qualified as an “expert.” In order to make this convening truly matter, they cautioned, we needed to consider those with nontraditional but equally important views on tech.

Our convening quickly grew beyond the gathering of grant partners and researchers we had originally envisioned. In January of this year, we flew to Austin with twenty-six teachers, artists, academics, storytellers, nonprofit leaders, designers, and high school students—each of whom brought a unique and important perspective to the table.

Before touching down in Texas, we presented our convening participants with a challenge: How can we advance our current human-technology paradigm in three years? 

It’s a huge question, and we had just a day and a half to address it. The pressure was on.

Jim and Solon kicked things off with an exercise where each of us shared our first memory of technology and how that experience made us feel. It was quite a trip down memory lane; we told stories about everything from landlines and VCRs to YouTube and Instagram. Even more interesting were the emotions associated with these memories—joy and wonder on one hand, anxiety and fear on the other. Simple as it was, this exercise made the issue feel tangible and relevant. We left the room reflecting on how this issue affects each of us personally.

On day two, we got straight to business. Right away, Jim and Solon asked us to think backwards. “It’s 2023,” they posed, “We’ve built a more productive and positive paradigm for our relationships with technology. How did we get here?”

Working in small groups to backcast from this ideal future, we brainstormed projects that moved the needle, identified barriers that we overcame, selected a single great idea, and laid out a roadmap for how that solution helped us achieve our goal. We ended up with a mountain of foam core, more post-it notes than we know what to do with, and five road maps towards a better future.

Through this process, our small team generated a ton of great ideas. Now it’s on us to sort through these solutions and identify which ones we can turn into actionable projects.

But as the dust settled from the convening, a few core concepts began to emerge. Here are our biggest takeaways from this work.

• The status quo is complicated. Our current relationships with technology make us feel a wide range of emotions. We value how tech brings us connection, freedom, and possibility; we resent how it causes confusion, anxiety, and fear.
• A better future is possible. We could imagine a future where technology contributes to individual and collective well-being. That future embodies the ideals of purpose, optimism, inspiration, balance, empathy, and magic.
• Agency is important. Tech shouldn’t be in control of the human-tech paradigm—we should be. Solutions to build a better future must acknowledge and encourage this agency, empowering each of us to develop a personal relationship with the tech we use.
• Diversity matters. Many of our participants expressed gratitude for being part of such a diverse group. By bringing together unlikely actors, we heard perspectives that are rarely elevated and ideas that might not have been surfaced.
• Solutions must be holistic. Our tech-enabled society is immeasurably complex, and every stakeholder in the system has distinct motivations. Instead of building piecemeal solutions in silos, we must forge unlikely alliances to achieve a better future.

In the coming weeks, we’ll work with Jim and Solon to distill the wealth of information that came out of this convening into an actionable set of solutions. We look forward to sharing what comes out of this exercise. Stay tuned!

Photos © K Krunk Photo

This blog is the first in a series exploring our evolving thinking on the relationships between technology and society. We look forward to learning more about this emerging topic, and to sharing what we learn along the way.

---

Picture a typical weekday. If you’re anything like us, you check your phone within a few minutes of waking up. You’ve scrolled through Instagram or Facebook by the time you’ve had your morning coffee. You read an article or two on your way to work, where you’ll spend seven or eight hours on your laptop. You’ll message friends and family throughout the day, and when you get home you’ll look forward to winding down with an episode of your favorite show on Netflix (for us, that’s currently the Great British Baking Show).

It’s undeniable that technology is all around us. But the impact of that technology — how it’s affecting individual people and our society at large — is far harder to describe.

We think that it’s important to build positive and productive relationships with the technology we use every day. But how? And what does a positive, productive relationship with technology even look like?

It’s questions like these that inspired us to launch our Tech and Society program area, a new funding opportunity focused on youth voice, and a year-long design project to better define and understand this space. We’ve already done several months of research, partnering with great minds and inspiring organizations eager to learn more about this emerging issue. We’re excited to share what we’ve discovered so far.

We first dipped our toes into this issue area about two years ago. After eight years funding social and emotional learning and digital learning, we began to wonder how those two areas might intersect. How is technology influencing our relationships and individual and collective well-being? And how can people — especially young people — engage more thoughtfully with the technology that’s all around us?

In late 2018, we launched a partnership with Chicago Ideas designed explicitly to explore this space. Our collaboration kicked off with a series of focus groups with Chicago Ideas’ youth ambassadors. We asked these teenagers about various forms of digital citizenship, such as online privacy, freedom of speech, and critical consumption. Two things quickly became clear: 1) kids think about these concepts every day, and 2) digital citizenship only paints a partial picture of teens’ online lives.

Further work in this space confirmed these hypotheses. A second partnership with DoSomething.org layered in the concepts of youth voice and agency, and the next phase of our work with Chicago Ideas led to the development of a set of resources — including one focused on digital ethics — for young people seeking to engage more thoughtfully with online life.

The more we engaged with this space, the more complex we found it…. and the harder it became to define. We talked to kids, parents, nonprofit leaders, and other funders; everyone was interested in this issue, but nobody seemed to know quite what to call it or how to address it. Terms like digital citizenship, digital well-being, and screen time circled around the larger topic that interested us, but none of them fit quite right. We wanted to explore how human issues like identity, mental health, personal relationships, and many more were affected when filtered through the lens of technology. It’s a massive issue that we know far too little about, and it grows more urgent with every new advancement.

So we brought in some help. We partnered with a Chicago-based design thinking firm to help build a year-long project to convene the best and brightest minds in this space. Our goal was to give this issue a clear definition and framework, bring together the great thinkers already doing brilliant work, and build a movement to make tech work better for all of us.

In our next blog post in this series, we’ll share what we’ve learned from this process so far. Stay tuned!

Photos © Chicago Public Library, Digital Harbor, and Dreamyard / David Flores

Through our Catalyst program, we select a small group of organizations from across the country who pursue innovative solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. We send each of these organizations an unexpected gift to support – and validate – their impressive work. 

Inspired by the perseverance and creativity we see in the nonprofit community across the country, this year we offered more Catalyst grants than we ever have before. Working on issues ranging from environmental activism to immigration to local journalism, these 27 organizations are catalysts for social progress.

• Arts and Culture: The Ellis Marsalis Center
• Community and Economic Development: The Sweet Water Foundation
• Education: Global Citizen Year, Higher Achievement, LaundryCares, Ryan Banks Academy
• Environment: California Wildfire Relief Fund, Project Drawdown, SustainUS, The Wetlands Initiative
• Health and Human Services: Deborah’s Place, Honor Flight, Musicians on Call, New Moms
• Immigration: Apna Ghar, The Florence Project, Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights
• Journalism and Civic Engagement: The American Journalism Project, Grist Media, Report for America
• Social Justice: BUILD Chicago, The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Equal Justice Initiative, Just Beginning, Pride ROC
• Youth Development: 826CHI, Blue Sky Bakery

Congratulations to our 2019 Catalyst grantees! Read on to learn more about each of these inspiring organizations.

---

ARTS AND CULTURE

The Ellis Marsalis Center: The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music at Musician’s Village is a 17,000 square foot facility that serves as a performance, education and community venue. The Center includes a 170-seat performance hall, recording studios, teaching facilities, and a gathering place for the community. With severe budget cuts in New Orleans schools, many of the young people in the city’s poorer communities are unable to access music education. The Center provides a place where underserved youth can develop musically, academically, and socially.

---

COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The Sweet Water Foundation: The Sweet Water Foundation utilizes a blend of urban agriculture, art, and education to transform vacant spaces and abandoned buildings into productive and sustainable community assets that produce engaged youth, skilled workers, art, locally-grown food, and affordable housing. Sweet Water Foundation’s biggest projects have included: The Commons, a four-block urban farm and community arts center in Englewood and Washington Park; Sweet Water Academy, which focuses on urban ecology; and Marketplace, a social enterprise incubator.

---

EDUCATION

Global Citizen Year: The year between high school and college is the most critical developmental moment in a young person’s life. This transition – when done by design and not by default – can become a transformation. By going deeper than typical study abroad or travel programs, Global Citizen Year Fellows learn to speak to their hosts in their own language and to see the world through new eyes. They gain the experience they need to solve real problems, the perspective they need to see new opportunities, and the network they need to make change happen.

Higher Achievement: Higher Achievement closes the opportunity gap during the pivotal middle school years. By leveraging the power of communities, Higher Achievement’s proven model provides a rigorous year-round learning environment, caring role models, and a culture of high expectations, resulting in college-bound scholars with the character, confidence, and skills to succeed. Higher Achievement has served more than 10,000 youth through afterschool and summer programs and high school placement support. Ninety-five percent of scholars graduate high school on-time and college-ready.

The LaundryCares Foundation: The LaundryCares Foundation provides literacy resources to families by making the local laundromat a center for learning and engagement. They team up with organizations such as Too Small to Fail to deliver educational programs promoting children’s literacy and family interactions at the laundromat. Donations to the LaundryCares Foundation help deliver Free Laundry Day events, provide laundry during periods of disaster relief, and give literacy resources to families while they’re at the laundromat.

Ryan Banks Academy: The Ryan Banks Academy is Chicago’s first tuition-free urban boarding school. Focusing on grades 7-12, they prepare motivated students from Chicago neighborhoods to graduate from college, enter meaningful careers, and change their communities. Viewing exceptional education as an investment in the future, Ryan Banks Academy’s model leverages personalized learning, digital learning, and extracurricular courses. 

---

ENVIRONMENT

The California Wildfire Relief Fund: The California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund supports immediate, mid- and long-term recovery efforts for major California wildfires, as well as support for animals affected by wildfires. Since the Wildfire Relief Fund opened in 2003, they have granted more than $22 million to support relief and recovery efforts in the aftermath of devastating California wildfires. Grants from the Wildfire Relief Fund have supported those who were displaced or who lost housing, helped to rebuild homes, provided basic needs assistance, and offered financial support.

Project Drawdown: Project Drawdown is a world-class research organization that reviews, analyses, and identifies the most viable global climate solutions and shares these findings with the world. They partner with communities, policy-makers, non-profits, businesses, investors, and philanthropists to identify and deploy science-based, effective climate solutions — as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible. All donations support the research and dissemination of these solutions.

SustainUS: SustainUS is a youth-led organization advancing justice and sustainability by empowering young people to engage in advocacy at the domestic and international levels. Young people have more to lose than any other generation, but they are not at the decision-making table for environmental issues. They send youth delegations to climate talks and train youth leaders in media, action, and community organizing. 

The Wetlands Initiative: Over 90% of Illinois’ natural wetlands are now drained, tiled, dammed, or leveed. Wetlands remove pollutants to provide cleaner water. They offer food and shelter to a vast array of plants and animals. They store floodwaters, reducing the cost and misery caused by flooding. They moderate climate change by sequestering carbon. The Wetlands Initiative restores the wetland resources of the Midwest, ensuring that they can improve water quality, increase wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and reduce flood damage. 

---

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Deborah’s Place: Since 1985, Deborah’s Place has provided compassionate care to women experiencing homelessness in Chicago. From humble beginnings as a volunteer-run program in a church gym, Deborah’s Place grew first to transitional housing and then to permanent supportive housing. Over time, they developed wrap-around services to complement their housing programs – services including job readiness training, tutoring and education assistance, health services, case management, and counseling. Deborah’s Place has helped over 4,000 women move from homeless to housed, and from simply surviving to truly living.

Honor Flight: The mission of Honor Flight is to transport America’s veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit the memorials dedicated to honoring those who have served and sacrificed for our country. Participation in an Honor Flight trip gives veterans the opportunity to share this momentous occasion with other comrades, to remember friends and comrades lost, and share their stories and experiences with other veterans. Through 140 regional hubs, Honor Flight has escorted over 200,000 veterans to Washington, D.C. and currently has a waiting list of 35,487.

Musicians on Call: Musicians on Call believes that all patients, families and caregivers should have access to and benefit from the healing power of live music. At each Bedside Performance Program, a Volunteer Musician is escorted from room to room to perform at the bedsides of patients. These interactions between musician and patient have the powerful effect of restoring the happiness that often fades away in long-term hospital stays. Volunteer musicians visited over 73,000 patients, staff, and family members in 2018.

New Moms: New Moms’ supportive housing portfolio offers 58 units of transitional housing in Chicago and Oak Park for young mothers and kids that are experiencing poverty. They also offer a 16-week paid job training program for new mothers that blends classroom and hands-on job experience through their social enterprise candle company, Bright Endeavors. Lastly, it offers family support services for young mothers. New Moms was awarded the Atlantic’s Renewal Award for local groups that support individuals and families who are economically vulnerable and socially isolated.

---

IMMIGRATION

Apna Ghar: Apna Ghar provides comprehensive and holistic services to survivors as they begin their journeys of healing and empowerment. They also conduct community education and address systemic barriers that immigrant survivors face. Apna Ghar’s services include legal advocacy, supervised visitation, counseling, case management, emergency shelter, transitional housing, and outreach and education. Last year, these direct services impacted approximately 8,000 people in the Chicago area.

The Florence Project: On any given day, 5,000 people are detained in Arizona. Detained immigrants facing deportation in the U.S. do not have the right to a public defender. Without representation, many will lose their case and get sent back to the conditions they are fleeing. To some, this is a death sentence. The Florence Project strives to address this inequity through direct service, partnerships with immigrant communities, and advocacy and outreach efforts.

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights: The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights seeks to provide immigrant children who arrive unaccompanied in the United States from around the world with child advocates that will champion their rights and best interests throughout the deportation process. Advocates visit the child they’re paired with weekly and accompany them to any court hearings or other immigration meetings. Donations to the organization help provide every child with an advocate.

---

JOURNALISM AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

The American Journalism Project: The economics that supported the news industry for most of the twentieth century are no longer viable. As a result, the civic function that news provides is under threat. To combat this, the American Journalism Project is raising $50 million for their initial fund to support 25-35 civic news organizations across the U.S. — organizations at various stages of development — that can serve as exemplars for a new generation of local news outlets.

Grist Media: Grist’s independent, nonprofit newsroom pursues in-depth stories on under-covered topics like clean energy, sustainable food, livable cities, environmental justice, and a better economy. They elevate solutions, expose inequity, and give readers the context, knowledge, and tools to make a difference. Donations help keep their journalism paywall- and subscription-free.

Report for America: Local news coverage has been decimated. Residents no longer get the information they need to understand the critical issues facing their community, to make good decisions for their family, and hold elected officials accountable. Report for America calls an emerging generation of journalists to service and sends them to report in under-covered corners of America. Currently, the program is supporting 60 talented journalists in 50 local newsrooms.

---

SOCIAL JUSTICE

BUILD Chicago: BUILD is a nationally respected gang intervention, violence prevention, and youth development organization based on Chicago’s West Side. Since 1969, BUILD has helped thousands of at-risk youth escape gangs and violence to become positive leaders of their communities. They mentor young people who face steep obstacles to success, reaching 3,500 youth a year in Austin, East Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Hermosa, Logan Square, and Fuller Park. Donations provide mentors and life-changing experiences for those youth.

Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights: The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights roots out and dismantles deeply entrenched systems of discrimination, racism, and economic oppression by using the power of the law to give voice to those most impacted by these civil rights issues. They provide free legal services to nonprofit organizations and social enterprises working to improve low-income communities. They also promote racial equity in education, housing, policing, and voting rights. 

Equal Justice Initiative: Founded by Bryan Stevenson, author of the memoir Just Mercy, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. In addition to its nationwide reform work, EJI runs the Legacy Center, a museum dedicated to the legacy of slavery in the United States, and the National Lynching Memorial. 

Just Beginning: Just Beginning is a parenting program that connects youth in the juvenile justice system with their children. Through parenting instruction, structured weekly visits, and post-release support, our program enables incarcerated teen parents to maintain contact and build a strong bond with their child – providing benefits for the child, parent, and society as a whole. Donations support the following services to incarcerated teen parents: parenting instruction for teenagers, weekly structured visits in child-friendly environments, and building support systems.

Pride ROC Chicago: Pride ROC was founded in direct response to the violence, poverty, and despair that transform some of the city’s communities into war zones.  Many of those stuck in the middle of this vicious cycle are looking for peace, but don’t have a pathway to safety. Pride ROC removes participants from violent environments, offers them an eight-day “passage” experience, and provides a case manager and weekly meetings once participants return home. 

---

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

826CHI: 826CHI is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Their programs focus on children from low-income families, who are English-language learners, or who attend under-resourced schools. Their programs connect students to caring volunteers throughout the school day, after school, on the weekends, and in the summer. 

Blue Sky Bakery: Blue Sky does more than create sweet and savory pastries from fresh, high-quality ingredients. As a nonprofit organization, they also provide transitional employment to homeless and at-risk youth. The Blue Sky Employment Program provides homeless and at-risk youth with twelve weeks of paid, supportive employment at Blue Sky Bakery & Café. When young people successfully complete the program at the bakery, the program works with them to secure stable, long-term employment.

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance.” ­­- Albert Einstein

When the Susan Crown Exchange was founded ten years ago, the world was a dramatically different place. We used maps, we read books, and we called people from land lines. No one used the phrase “fake news.” We had no option but to be present in special moments, rather than scrambling to photograph those moments for our feeds.

In 2009, a remarkable new invention called the smartphone became commonplace. This device enabled anyone to carry a powerful computer in their pocket, with access to search engines, communication platforms, and countless other applications. Facebook, founded in 2004 for students, had been claimed by a new demographic: parents and grandparents who wanted to stay in touch with family and friends. Blogs and social media became low-cost distribution channels for anyone with something to say.

Technology is here, and here to stay. It has changed everything. But it has not altered our basic, human needs for connection, meaning, and achievement. As we enter the twentieth year of the twenty-first century, we’re just beginning to understand how the rise of powerful new technologies affects our ability to fulfill those needs. Ideally, tech connects us, offers democratic access to quality information, and helps us live more productive and efficient lives. In the worst cases, it sows division and isolation.

As technologies emerge, evolve, and disappear in the blink of an eye, we’ve had to adjust the questions we ask and the solutions we support. In a world that seems to be shifting beneath our feet, we have remained grounded by seeking the answer to a single question: How can we prepare the rising generation to thrive in a rapidly changing, highly connected world?

For the past ten years, our core values have guided this pursuit. We intend to stay the course with these values; they have served us and our community well.

DARING

We thrive in the white space. We explore the questions that our society is just beginning to ask, and partner with the people who are best equipped to answer them. We’re inspired by ambitious thinkers and big, bold ideas.

CURIOSITY

We approach every problem with a learning mindset. We ask questions that don’t have answers. We rigorously research issues before we decide to take them on. We take calculated risks, make mistakes, and learn from the process. We’d rather do things correctly than quickly; real change takes time.

TRANSPARENCY

We are candid with our collaborators about our approach, our thought process, and what we’ve learned. We strive to foster open dialogue. We share the results of our partnerships with the field, so others can learn from our experience and build upon our progress.

RESPECT

We strive to upend traditional power dynamics by treating the organizations we support as genuine partners in our shared aspirations. We forge unlikely partnerships and value the unique expertise that each actor brings to the table.

GRATITUDE

 We are privileged to work with keen minds, daring dreamers, and the most passionate problem-solvers. We are grateful to the visionaries who came before us, for the colleagues who share our passion, and for the opportunity to do this work.

Inspired by these values and informed by our team’s wealth of experience in the “three sectors” of business, government, and social impact, we’ve developed a new foundation model. We call this model The Exchange. Through this paradigm, we strive to embody our values by upending traditional power dynamics and forging authentic partnerships. This is the best way to achieve our mission.

The Digital Age offers unprecedented, promising opportunities, as well as challenges we cannot yet define or fully grasp. We raise questions and seek solutions to the issues we find most relevant and pressing at this moment in history. We work with best-in-class organizations who are asking similar questions, and are able to offer on-the-ground experience to move us closer to answers.

Together with dozens of high-impact organizations—and no small number of exceptional leaders—we’ve helped parents sift through a sea of digital media products to find the ones most educational and fitting for their children. We’ve articulated a set of best practices to cultivate social and emotional skills in kids, who now text as much as they talk face to face. We’ve helped teens build the digital skills that will enable them to pursue futures in coding, creativity, and commerce. And we’ve spotlighted many Catalyst grantees who’ve crafted innovative solutions to chronic social problems.

What will the world look like a decade from now? I have no idea. I do know that the pace of change will accelerate—and that we will work tirelessly to prepare the next generation for the challenges we can’t yet envision.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Trustees and staff members who have co-created SCE, investing great care, intellect, humanity, hard work, and commitment.  Last, I express gratitude to my grandfather Henry Crown, whose brilliant mind and generous spirit taught me what it means to be a lifelong learner and true citizen in a broken world.

Susan Crown

What roles can data play in building effective digital learning programs for youth? How can those programs ensure that their most ambitious projects succeed? And how can your organization leverage professional development to maximize impact?

In a new webinar series on Reclaiming Digital Futures, experts from our Digital Learning partners explore these questions—and much more. These webinars are great resources for educators and nonprofit professionals interested in effective practices for equitable, youth-centered digital learning.

Watch the webinars here!

#1: Using Data to Improve Out-of-School Digital Learning Programs

#2: Creating Big, Ambitious, Collaborative Projects

#3: Professional Learning and Staff Capacity to Support Out-of-School Digital Learning Programs

It’s no surprise that a generation that grew up on the internet has plenty of insights on how to make it better. In partnership with ATTN: Media and Chicago Ideas, we launched a campaign to encourage our future leaders to tell us how they really feel about technology and social media.

Learn about the campaign. Watch the video. Share your voice. Check out #DearSocialMedia.

 

Young athletes share their stories at the Project Play Summit.

Don’t retire, kid.

That message anchored the Aspen Institute’s 2019 Project Play Summit, which brought more than 500 leaders in sport and youth development to Detroit this September. Over two days, representatives from national athletics organizations, nonprofit and philanthropic professionals, parents, and kids discussed how we can make sports work for all kids.

There’s a major need for these conversations. A recent study by the Aspen Institute found that most kids “retire” from sports by the age of 12. Just 38% of kids between ages six and 12 play sports regularly—down from 45% in 2008. Sometimes it’s because sports are too expensive; travel and equipment can cost thousands of dollars per year. Sometimes, it’s because sports get too competitive or intense. When sports stop being fun, kids stop playing.

This is a big concern. Kids who don’t play sports miss out on a guaranteed form of physical activity; they’re less likely to get the amount of exercise they need to stay healthy. However, they also miss out on opportunities for social and emotional development. When they’re done right, organized sports can help kids build self-esteem, set goals, learn teamwork, and practice leadership.

At the Susan Crown Exchange, we’re all about preparing kids to thrive. We’re especially interested in social and emotional learning (SEL) – the development of skills like empathy and collaboration, which have been linked to improved academic results and better life outcomes for kids.

Sports certainly aren’t the only way that kids build these skills. But with 45 million kids playing sports each year in the US alone, the potential is huge. We came to this conference with an open mind, excited to hear from a diverse set of experts on how we can make sports better for kids. Here’s what we learned.

The session we co-hosted with the Aspen Institute: How to Coach Social and Emotional Skills

1. Sports aren’t just physical. We believe that social and emotional skills are critical for a child’s development. As it turns out, we’re not alone. Together with the Aspen Institute, we hosted an interactive session about why these skills matter, how sports can help children build them, and the role of coaches in a young athlete’s development. Nearly 100 people from a variety of backgrounds attended. Our participants gave us invaluable insights into how we can empower coaches to adopt SEL-informed approaches, making sure that the young athletes they support are prepared to thrive.
2. We need to make sports better for kids. No matter where they came from in the world of sport, it seemed that everyone agreed on this. Parents spoke compellingly about the pressures their children faced from a young age. A panel of children agreed. Nonprofit leaders stressed that some kids can’t access sports at all—kids from low-income homes are half as likely to play sports as their upper-income peers. These are thorny issues, and we need to tackle them from all angles. We think that well-trained coaches will be particularly instrumental in addressing issues like these, and that an SEL-informed approach to coaching can have an outsized impact on the social and emotional development of young athletes.
3. There’s a lot we’re still figuring out. It seems that everyone agrees that something needs to be done to make youth sports better. What’s less clear is what. Being fairly new to the world of sport, we were fascinated by some of the open questions that came up. Given what we know about the pressure kids are under, what is the role of competition? How can parents promote sports sampling—encouraging kids to try different sports—without overscheduling their children? How can we increase the demand for well trained coaches? These are questions that the field hasn’t answered yet—but it’s white spaces like this that excite us.
4. Everyone has a role to play. Perhaps our favorite part of the conference was the diversity of perspectives welcomed. A panel of kids shared their experiences with sport. Their parents followed up with their own stories. Athletes with disabilities and their able-bodied teammates spoke candidly about what they each had learned from participating in integrated sports. And civic, philanthropic, and business leaders discussed the large-scale interventions needed to bring sports to more kids on a macro scale. Keynote speaker David Brooks referred to sports as a “social fabric” that can help build a just and kind society; it’s clear that many actors play a part in weaving that fabric together.

Jennifer Lerner of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program introduces the session.

As we explore the connections between sports, SEL, and youth development, we’re excited to keep learning—and to think about how we might play a part. If you know of any great resources or organizations that are also interested in this topic, let us know. We’d love to learn from them.

Learn more about our partnership with the Aspen Institute here.

All photos © Aspen Institute Project Play

When conflict escalated in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2013, 16-year-old Tino fled the country—leaving his entire family behind.

Sadly, Tino’s story is a common one. The DRC has suffered ethnic, political, and economic conflicts for decades—conflicts that have driven millions of people from their homes. Refugees and internally displaced people are forced to leave quickly. Like Tino, many become separated from their families in the process.

There are over 65 million forcibly displaced people around the world. Many of those people don’t know where their loved ones are.

Our Catalyst Grants are meant to address urgent issues like this by supporting organizations that approach them in new and promising ways. Last year we offered a Catalyst Grant to REFUNITE: a nonprofit that uses simple technology to reconnect refugees with their missing families.

REFUNITE believes that everyone has the right to know where their family is. Photos © REFUNITE.

Living in neighboring Uganda, Tino didn’t know if he would see his family again. Until he found REFUNITE.

There are many reasons that displaced people struggle to find their loved ones. With their families also fleeing conflict, refugees can’t just call home and expect someone to pick up. Family members find themselves in different camps, countries, or continents. What little information might be available is often spread across several nonprofit organizations—and recorded in languages that refugees don’t speak.

When brothers Christopher and David Mikkelsen founded REFUNITE in 2005, they sought to cut through this confusion and give displaced people a single platform for family reconnection. REFUNITE has worked with Ericsson, the United Nations, and local mobile network operators to create a user-friendly database containing over 1 million profiles of displaced people. This network can be accessed through a mobile phone, computer, or help line, and is available in 17 countries where displacement is commonplace.

Simultaneously, REFUNITE has worked to create genuine economic opportunities for displaced people where such opportunities are scarce. In Uganda, the nonprofit is piloting a program called LevelApp that pays refugees to sort and label the images that help computer algorithms get smarter. Tech companies pay well for this service; in the communities where it’s offered, participating refugees earn three times more than those that do not. The 10,000 people who participate in LevelApp have already categorized over 175 million images—demonstrating the powerful potential of bringing digital jobs to refugee communities.

These platforms are major steps in the right direction. But perhaps REFUNITE’s greatest innovation is its network of more than 6,000 community leaders—leaders with deep roots in places with limited access to mobile phones. This network has a collective reach of more than five million people across 35 countries. If a user like Tino notifies REFUNITE that he’s looking for a family member, REFUNITE will blast a text message to community leaders active in areas where Congolese refugees often end up. Those local leaders connect refugees with family members in remote regions that REFUNITE staff wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach.

Tino, his mother, and the cell phone that helped reunite them.

When Tino fled the country, his mother also left—first to the capital of Kinshasa, and then to France. Five years later, she saw a notification on her phone: “You have one new message. To read it, go to m.refunite.org.”

The message was from Tino. And he was contacting her from Uganda—thousands of miles away.

Since 2005, REFUNITE has received more than 1 million registrations. Every day, they organize over 2,000 searches. And they’ve reconnected over 40,000 families. We’re proud to have played even a small role in supporting REFUNITE’s mission.

Behind every one of those 40,000 connections is a story like Tino’s. When he talked to his mother for the first time in five years, he didn’t know what to say. Eventually, he spoke: “Mom, I love you so much.”

Learn more about REFUNITE today.