Get Involved
The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health catalyzes impact through collaboration with donors and partners who share a common goal of improving the mental health and well-being of adolescents, particularly those who are of color and/or LGBTQ+. The Upswing Fund aggregates philanthropic support to achieve greater impact and leverages donor giving to sustain culturally-competent service organizations, scale proven interventions, and accelerate innovation to expand the availability of mental health support.
Our partners commit their support for adolescent mental health in a variety of ways, including:
Collaborative Funding
Philanthropic investment in The Upswing Fund provides strategic support to help close gaps in care for adolescent mental health through grants and programmatic activities.
Strategic Partnerships
Engagement in strategies to build capacity and expand the availability of support for mental health and well-being across the adolescent mental health ecosystem.
To learn more about partnering with The Upswing Fund, please contact Jennifer Cho at [email protected].
Frequently Asked Questions
The Upswing Fund is seeded by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company created by Melinda French Gates to advance social progress in the United States. Further support has been provided by The Klarman Family Foundation and other donors. The Fund is powered by Panorama, a platform for social change dedicated to solving global problems through audacious thinking and bold action.
Through Surge Capacity grants, The Upswing Fund aims to immediately increase capacity for mental health providers serving adolescents who are of color and/or LGBTQ+ to ensure that more adolescents have access to quality mental healthcare. The Fund will enable grantees to provide care by:
- Achieving short-term programmatic and organizational goals
- Increasing capacity to treat more adolescents
- Enabling the procurement of technology and telehealth resources to deploy teletherapy services as a response to COVID-19
- Facilitating a marked impact on the youth they serve, determined by an increase in the amount of therapy sessions as well as improvement in adolescent patients’ mental health as measured by evidence-based surveys
Systems Enabler grants provide resources to organizations to support innovative approaches in adolescent mental health services that make more resilient systems to enable access to care. A systems enabler is an inclusive, forward-thinking organization with a game-changing program or project focused on transforming mental health for adolescents. Systems Enabler Grants will be awarded to address these key focus areas:
- Efforts to expand the formal mental health workforce
- Mental health service integration in schools and/or other community-based organizations
- Expanded use of digital tools or telehealth services
- Public financing of mental health services
The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health was launched to respond to a pressing national need to improve mental health care for adolescents who are of color and/or LGBTQ+. Racial and ethnic minority youth and LGBTQ+ youth are at higher risk of mental health challenges and often face greater barriers to care.
The Upswing Fund had a request for proposal open for two types of grants in Fall 2020 and is no longer accepting applications. Eligible organizations serve or benefit the Fund's target populations ages 10-18 and are certified as a 501(c)(3) by the IRS. The two grant types support direct-service organizations as well as system-enabling organizations supporting innovative approaches to adolescent mental health services.
To learn more about the specific eligibility requirements of each grant type, please visit our What We Fund page.
The Upswing Fund aims to immediately increase capacity for mental health providers serving adolescents who are of color and/or LGBTQ+ to ensure that more adolescents have access to quality mental health care. The Fund will enable grantees to provide care by:
- Achieving short-term programmatic and organizational goals
- Increasing capacity to treat more adolescents
- Enabling the procurement of technology and telehealth resources to deploy teletherapy services as a response to COVID-19
- Facilitating a marked impact on the youth they serve, determined by an increase in the amount of therapy sessions as well as improvement in adolescent patients’ mental health as measured by evidence-based surveys
