The nonprofit has an opportunity to tell the story of how the organization adapted to tremendous external changes in the last year.
In recent years, society has come to understand the fact that our youth & young adults are experiencing a mental health crisis. The data paint a worrisome picture of youth & young adult mental health, with well-documented increases in anxiety, depression, suicidality, and feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and isolation.
Active Minds has identified key barriers for youth to accessing mental health care today with social stigma as one of the most universal and persistent challenges. Though each person has individual circumstances that dictate how they are affected by barriers, we see that BIPOC (Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American and Pacific Islander) and LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other) populations were most likely to be impacted by these barriers.
In the last year, Active Minds engaged in a five year strategic planning process that involved both internal (i.e. staff, Board of Directors, youth volunteers, etc.) and external stakeholders (i.e. national partners, thought leaders, and a full landscape analysis) in assessing the current needs and projecting where Active Minds can play the most strategic role.
Based on the findings, Active Minds has begun to pivot the focus of our work to build on our strong foundation of educating youth & young adults in order to create even greater impact by inspiring action that ultimately changes norms and behaviors of individuals, communities, and systems around mental health. Ultimately, we seek for our work to create a movement that forever changes how mental health is valued and prioritized.
We doubled the size of our team to center the empowerment and mobilization of youth & young adults, particularly LGBTQ+ and BIPOC youth. Active Minds’ focus will be amplifying the collective, diverse voice of youth and young adults to build a movement of lasting champions who improve mental health.