Building The Goodness Web: How a Philanthropic Collaborative is Transforming Youth Mental Health

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The Goodness Web (TGW) is a national funder collaborative of nearly 200 family philanthropies dedicated to investment in evidence-based solutions to support youth mental health. TGW focuses on investing in organizations committed to changing the delivery of youth mental health services. The collaborative supports eight major grantees with an average gift of more than $1 million as well as non-monetary support, such as coaching, financial management, fundraising, and strategic and business plan support. The collaborative also supports roughly 20 earlier-stage nonprofits with smaller gifts.

Since launching in 2022, TGW has granted more than $10 million to organizations driving systems change and expanding the availability of support for mental health and well-being across the adolescent mental health ecosystem. These multiyear grants focus on on-campus awareness, prevention and early intervention; insurance parity and equitable access of mental healthcare; service provision for youth and parents in primary care offices; and policy change to advance youth mental health.

In 2023, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation made a $300,000 investment in TGW to support growth in the field of mental health philanthropy. TGW’s national grants program, which includes support in Georgia and Montana, connects a diverse community of result-oriented donors and partners. Since 2022, the foundation has invested more than $35 million in its Mental Health & Well-Being nonprofit portfolio.

Alexis Nwaiwu, the foundation’s communications specialist, recently met with Celine Coggins, Chief Executive Officer at TGW, to learn more about TGW and its mission.

Alexis Nwaiwu: Can you please share a little about yourself and TGW?

Celine Coggins: I’ve been with TGW for a little less than a year as the inaugural CEO. Before that, I founded and ran my own nonprofit for more than a decade. I had worked more in the traditional academic space focused on youth and have moved away from schools to mental health. In my professional life, I saw the rise of mental health issues, which were really growing in big ways in schools. My experiences with my own children and their friends also led me on a learning journey into the youth mental health space, which brought me to TGW.

Alexis: Where did your interest in mental health originate?

Celine: When I worked with middle schoolers as a teacher, I saw the need for young people to feel a sense of connection and to have support that allowed them to feel a sense of belonging. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, I saw my own children struggle with isolation and its implications. These experiences pushed me along in my own journey.

Alexis: How do you find philanthropies that align with what you’re trying to do?

Celine: When TGW was founded, part of the theory of change included a belief that there are many people who have been affected by mental health issues and who have the capacity to give but don’t know where to give. We created a collaborative that is a space for people to come together and talk openly about their challenging experiences. If an individual or organization is interested in becoming a donor, we’ll conduct the due diligence process to ensure the nonprofits receiving the donations are making an impact. Our Chief Investment Officer evaluates the business model, service depth, cost efficiency and scalability of the nonprofit organizations. This ensures our donor community has confidence in the grants we make. We also provide donors with updates on the grantees’ progress.

Alexis: How do you build and maintain alignment across such a diverse group of funders?

Celine: We often hear about fragmented support services and the challenges parents face in finding the right counselor for their child. We also hear a lot of parents worried about their kids and social media. Hearing these concerns led us to work on issues like workforce development and helping kids navigate the digital space.

Alexis: How does TGW think about meeting youth earlier, before they are in crisis?

Celine: It’s incredibly important to think about prevention. There are many opportunities to meet kids where they are, such as in schools, higher education institutions and through digital space navigation. Ensuring pediatricians can help parents access mental health services for their kids is also vital.

We fund several grantees working in these areas. One standout is the Jed Foundation, which does great work on college campuses. Another is Think:Kids, which provides evidence-based training for parents, teachers and others to help young people with emotional regulation, frustration management and conflict resolution.

Alexis: What regional differences do you see in the mental health space?

Celine: About 50% of the U.S. is considered a mental health care desert, where it’s difficult to find professional services. We recently invested in Reach University, which works with hospital systems to help individuals without bachelor’s degrees aspire to get master’s degrees in counseling through an apprentice-based model. This helps build the supply of mental health professionals in underserved communities.

Alexis: Are there any other grantee stories that illustrate how wrap-around support has helped scale and deepen their impact?

Celine: One organization we fund is Inseparable, which works in policy and advocacy to drive dollars and policy change in the mental health space across many states. We invested in them early because we saw the need for both on-the-ground services and policy infrastructure to ensure mental health conditions are treated on par with physical health conditions.

Alexis: What gives you hope right now in the youth mental health space, and what’s your call to action for other funders or partners looking to make a difference?

Celine: The post-COVID moment gives me hope because the spotlight is on mental health issues. Parents of this generation of teens and young adults feel motivated to improve mental health support. We need more people working in this space, better support for teachers and more investment in mental health. Only 1.7% of all philanthropy goes to mental health, and that number needs to grow.

Alexis: What advice would you give to nonprofits just starting out and looking for funding?

Celine: Starting a nonprofit requires doing a little bit of everything early on. You need to strengthen your programming first, then figure out social media, fundraising, back-office operations and prioritizing tasks. Be relentless about prioritizing.

Alexis: Are there any plans for expansion or new initiatives? Where do you see TGW in the next 5 to 10 years?

Celine: Yes, collaborative funds like ours are needed because the average philanthropic gift in America is $27,200, forcing nonprofit CEOs to invest heavily in development when they want to be helping kids. We aim to make larger grants to allow nonprofits to hire program people rather than development people. In the next 5 to 10 years, our goal is to destigmatize mental health and fund the best nonprofits to drive change. We want to empower families with lived experience to be drivers of change.

TGW and its network of leaders are making bold bets on promising solutions in the world of mental healthcare. By providing support to young people where they are – in schools, communities and online – TGW is helping to accelerate mental health initiatives to improve the lives of America’s youth and those who care for them. To learn more about The Goodness Web and its mental health advocacy work, please check out thegoodnessweb.org.