Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Invests $25 Million in Youth Mental Health and Well-Being

Share

Link copied!

Grants support nonprofits across the U.S., cultivating flourishing mental health for young people

ATLANTA – Dec. 10, 2025 – This year, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has committed $25 million in support of a new national Mental Health & Well-Being grantmaking strategy. The grants support the foundation’s goal of helping young people flourish by focusing on three critical periods: infancy, childhood and adolescence.

“These grants reflect our commitment to supporting young people’s mental health and well-being at pivotal moments in their development,” said Beth Brown, managing director of Mental Health and Well-Being at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. “Our strategy is ambitious and hopeful, focused on prevention. We’re pleased to invest in solutions that support the vision that every baby born today will have a stronger path toward flourishing mental well-being than any generation that came before.”

The grants build upon a learning portfolio of more than $31 million committed since 2022 to support youth mental health. For the next ten years, the foundation’s Mental Health and Well-Being grantmaking will focus on three pillars:

Parents Establish Secure Emotional Bonds With Their Infants

A young person’s mental health is shaped in the earliest years of life through the bond with their parents and experiences during infancy. Early interventions address risk factors by

supporting parents, infants and families during the critical ages of zero to three before mental health issues arise.

Research shows that nearly half of childhood-onset mental health conditions can be prevented through strong maternal mental health, positive parenting skills and healthy family functioning.  When parents, especially mothers, have the support and resources to maintain good mental health, they create nurturing and responsive environments that strengthen their children’s emotional development, build resilience and lay the foundation for lifelong well-being. 

Children Develop Resilience and a Sense of Belonging

Schools play a vital role in supporting the well-being of young people. While trained school psychologists, social workers and nurses deliver mental health support, prevention can be strengthened by teachers, coaches, volunteers and community organizations that help young people develop their social and emotional skills and cultivate a positive school climate and a strong sense of belonging. The foundation is interested in investing in two types of programs that support elementary and middle school students in this way—mindfulness programs and peer-to-peer support focused on belonging.

Teenagers Have a Healthy Relationship with Digital Technology

Young people face complexity in navigating the digital world. Their use of technology and social media has been on the rise for 15 years, largely due to the arrival of smartphones, the dominance of video content on social media and the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 46% of U.S. teens report being online “almost constantly,” a significant increase from 24% a decade ago.   

While social media use is associated with increases in depression and anxiety, young people also use technology to build community and access support. The foundation aims to address both sides of this coin by helping young people thrive in a technology-filled world through supports that reduce excessive screen time, build digital literacy and AI navigation skills, and increase opportunities for healthy online connection and peer support.

Select nonprofits receiving Mental Health and Well-Being grants from the foundation in 2025 are highlighted below.

• Sandy Hook Promise: $3 million. Sandy Hook Promise aims to reduce social isolation and create cultures of belonging in schools nationwide through peer support programs. The foundation’s grant will support the scaling of student-led programs, including a nationally recognized program, No One Eats Alone, that combats loneliness in middle school lunchrooms. Funding will also support the development of a unified K-12 model to help schools build stronger cultures of belonging.
• Common Sense Media: $3 million. Common Sense Media advances public awareness of how technology impacts youth mental health and develops practical tools for families and educators to increase digital literacy and well-being. Through its Healthy Tech, Healthy Minds initiative, it will expand its K-12 Digital Literacy & Well-Being Curriculum, deepen research on digital life and AI, and provide guidance that helps schools navigate issues like AI and cellphone use.
• Mindful Philanthropy: $2.7 million. Mindful Philanthropy guides the philanthropic sector with a bold vision to dramatically increase both the quantity and quality of philanthropic investment in mental health and well-being. This grant will support Mindful Philanthropy’s work as a field catalyst, strengthening the effectiveness of mental health philanthropy and advancing increased giving among funders in the relatively new field.
• The Together Project: $2.5 million. Founded by former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, The Together Project is an initiative to strengthen belonging, connection and community in America. This grant will support the launch and early days of the new nonprofit, which aims to mobilize coordinated efforts that advance social connection as a foundation for individual and collective well-being. The foundation has provided an additional $2.5 million to The Together Project through its Founder Initiatives portfolio.
• Ad Council: $2.4 million. The Ad Council uses communications and storytelling to reduce stigma, increase awareness and catalyze behavior change related to significant societal issues. This grant provides funding to launch a national public education campaign on maternal and infant mental health. This campaign will raise awareness of symptoms, reduce stigma, connect mothers to trusted resources and promote early relational health during the prenatal and perinatal periods.
• Young Futures: $1 million. Young Futures works at the intersection of technology and youth mental health. The foundation’s investment will support two innovation challenges, including its latest “Oops!…AI Did It Again,” to surface promising solutions that help young people navigate AI, build healthy relationships with technology, and strengthen connection and belonging in online environments.

A Commitment to Crisis Response

The foundation’s Mental Health and Well-Being strategy takes a long-term view. At the same time, many young people are currently in crisis, and the foundation will support organizations that provide access to treatment for young people in crisis as needed. Recent examples are a $3 million grant to Crisis Text Line to increase support for those seeking help via the national text line and another $2 million to Inseparable to support its efforts to strengthen systems of care for young people experiencing mental health crises.

To learn more about the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation’s Mental Health and Well-Being giving, visit https://ambff.org/MHWB.  

About the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation is a philanthropy founded to help transform lives and communities by uniting people across differences to find common cause. Started in 1995 by Arthur M. Blank, co-founder of The Home Depot, the foundation has granted more than $1.5 billion to charitable causes. Our collective giving areas are Atlanta’s Westside, Democracy, Environment, Mental Health and Well-Being, and Youth Development. Across these areas, we take on tough challenges by uniting the courage and compassion of our communities so we can all thrive together.

In addition to the priority areas of giving, the foundation oversees a large portfolio of grants including support of essential Atlanta nonprofit institutions, such as Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Shepherd Center, and enduring founder-led initiatives, such as veterans and the military and stuttering, among others. The foundation will also continue to guide the seven associate-led giving committees operating across the Blank Family of Businesses. For more information, please visit www.blankfoundation.org.