Topic: Health and wellbeing

Five Minutes with… New York Life Foundation’s Heather Nesle

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Although grief touches nearly every family at some point, the systems people rely on most — schools, workplaces, healthcare settings — often remain unprepared to offer meaningful support. This year, the New York Life Foundation is hitting a major milestone in its effort to change that: $100 million invested in bereavement support since it began funding the field nearly two decades ago.

The Foundation’s 2025 State of Grief Report zeroes in on three places where support gaps run deepest: the youngest grievers under age five, who are often the most overlooked; schools, where most parents want grief education and better systems for identifying bereaved students; and workplaces, where two in three employees say they’ve experienced the death of a loved one while on the job. Taken together, the findings are clear: people want grief acknowledged and supported, not sidestepped, and most institutions still don’t know how.

For this installment of Five Minutes With…, NationSwell spoke with Heather Nesle, President of the New York Life Foundation, about the $100 million milestone, what the report reveals, and where the Foundation’s work goes next.

NationSwell: Congratulations on New York Life Foundation reaching $100 million invested in bereavement support. What does that milestone mean to you? What story does it tell about the role philanthropy can play in building a more grief-literate society?

Heather Nesle, President, New York Life Foundation: I think $100 million is very significant in the history of our foundation. Since we started in 1979, we’ve given roughly half a billion dollars total, so 20% of that in just the last 17 to 18 years, all focused on this one issue.

We started with a few grants for camps and bereavement centers. But once we understood the depth of the need, it became clear this was a place where we could really have an impact — the kind of niche every funder hopes to find.

Early on, we realized we couldn’t even answer a basic question: How many children are actually affected? Grief is universal, yet in the U.S. it’s swept under the rug; there’s a stigma around even bringing it up. So we helped fund the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model out of Judi’s House, which let bereavement organizations back up their work with real numbers instead of just stories. Today we know 1 in 11 children will lose a parent or sibling before age 18 in the U.S., and that’s an undercount of the pervasiveness of grief, since it doesn’t include grandparents, friends or other significant relationships. Nearly every grant application we receive now cites that statistic.

We’ve also focused on schools. Over a decade ago, our survey with the American Federation of Teachers found that roughly 93% of teachers had a grieving student in their classroom, but only 7% had ever received training on how to help. So, we built the Coalition to Support Grieving Students and launched our own Grief-Sensitive Schools Initiative, training our employees and agents to run presentations about bereavement resources at local schools, each of which gets a $500 grant and joins a support network now nearly 8,000 strong. When we redid the survey years later, teacher training had risen to 15% — still lower than we’d like, but marking real progress.

This work is deeply mission-driven for us. Our company’s mission is financial security and peace of mind, and this is the peace-of-mind half of that, because our agents and claims staff are often among the first people bereaved families talk to. It’s genuinely a labor of love: our Grief-Sensitive Schools program is our most popular volunteer effort, with over 3,600 agents and employees trained to lead it. As a corporate funder, it’s rare to find an issue that resonates so deeply that you never have to convince your people to engage — and this work makes us better as an organization, too.

NationSwell: The latest State of Grief report does a good job highlighting that while grief is universal, support for grief is still pretty uneven. Where do you see the biggest gaps right now, especially for children, families, schools, and workplaces?

Nesle, New York Life Foundation: I think one of the biggest gaps — and it’s not just about schools, though schools play a big part — is identifying bereaved youth. Right now, there’s no real way to know where a grieving child is or who they’ve lost.

In our State of Grief Report, we’ve asked about this the past few years, and parents are clear: 83% believe grief education has a place in school, and around 75% believe a death in the family should be documented on a child’s school record. We can train teachers and administrators all we want, but if they don’t know which children are grieving, it’s much harder to help. We see the effects of this: children acting out because of a loss and being treated punitively because no one at school knows what’s actually going on.

Identification also matters because of the benefits many of these children are owed. Most children in the U.S. who lose a parent or guardian qualify for Social Security survivor benefits, but less than half actually receive them, largely due to lack of awareness. Schools, as the hub of social support for most families, could play a huge role here: if they could identify and understand what a child is going through, they’d be positioned to offer real support, not just academically. 

Government has a major role to play as well. We’re already seeing what’s possible through our partnership with the Children’s Collaborative, where we worked with state agencies in Utah to match death records with school enrollment data. That work has surfaced more than 3,000 children so far who are eligible for support but have never been identified by any system. That’s a proof of concept for what proactive, government-enabled identification can look like at scale. 

So that’s an issue very much on our radar, and one we’re working on from multiple angles.

NationSwell: The latest report spends meaningful time on very young children. Why was it important to focus on the youngest grievers, and what do adults often get wrong about how young children experience loss?

Nesle, New York Life Foundation: We want to focus on everybody, not just children — our interest is in supporting all people as they grieve. That said, we’re putting particular attention on the youngest grievers right now, because very few people pay attention to that cohort. There’s a general belief that if you’re very young, you don’t really understand these concepts, so you’re not affected in the same way. But we like to say: if you’re old enough to love, you’re old enough to grieve. Young children need attention, too.

Our findings back that up. Nearly 90% of people wanted more resources to help them talk to young children about grief. Most parents and caregivers want to do the right thing, but often aren’t sure what that is, so they end up doing nothing, which is actually the wrong approach.

We’ve worked with several partners to address this age group appropriately, Sesame Street being one great example. While a three-year-old can’t have the same conversation as a 12-year-old, that doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling things or don’t need ways to express themselves. We’ve also worked with children’s museums across the country to find the right ways, often through play, to engage the youngest grievers.

NationSwell: So much of this work seems to come down to helping people know what to do in moments when they might otherwise freeze, avoid the topic, or say nothing. What have you learned about what actually helps people show up well for someone who is grieving?

Nesle, New York Life Foundation: A few things stick with me from conversations with many colleagues and bereavement experts over the years.

Saying nothing is the worst thing you can do. People, children and adults alike, need to feel supported and safe, and able to communicate in whatever way feels comfortable to them. Even something as simple as “I’m here for you, talk to me” can be enough.

Our most popular resource is a tip card on what to say and what not to say. People worry a lot about saying the wrong thing. Those tips help, but I’d also say there isn’t really a wrong thing to say. Someone might take it the wrong way, but I think it comes down to intent. If you’re authentic, honest, and willing to listen on the other person’s terms, that’s the best thing you can do.

We also tell people not to put the burden on the grieving person. Instead of asking “What can I do for you?”, be specific: “Can I bring you dinner tonight?” or “Can I help with your laundry?” That way it’s not one more thing they have to figure out.

But beyond the ideal conversations and tips, I think it’s really about showing up and checking in, not just the first week or month, but three months in, six months in. People often respond right away and then disappear. Grief doesn’t follow a linear timetable, especially when you lose someone close, and the first year can get harder, not easier, as it goes on. Just letting someone know you’re still thinking of them can be enough.

NationSwell: How has having proprietary data benefitted the initiative holistically?

Nesle, New York Life Foundation: Data is so important. Many funders, governments included, won’t grant money to an organization unless there’s data to back up its claims. Storytelling can bring out emotion and help convey what you’re trying to say, but hard data can do the same thing.

I don’t like comparing one cause to another, but when you look at the fact that 1 in 11 children in the U.S. will lose a parent or sibling before age 18, that prevalence rate is far higher than many other issues receiving attention. Having that contrast, that benchmark against other causes, helps push this to the forefront as something that needs to be addressed. And that 1-in-11 figure is a national average. Some states are at 1 in 7, and some cities are even higher. Being able to point to real numbers like that, to show this is a genuine issue area, gets people’s attention.

Data also matters for us in benchmarking our own impact. We want to understand where we’re starting from and where we want to get to. With the American Federation of Teachers survey, starting from such a low percentage was tough to see, but it also motivated us to find real interventions, ones that would actually move that number and have a measurable effect. The work is cut out for you, but at least you know where you stand.

NationSwell: New York Life Foundation has invested in a wide ecosystem of grief supports, from schools and employers to public awareness campaigns and partnerships with organizations like Sesame Workshop, Judi’s House, and the National Alliance for Children’s Grief. How do you think about knitting those efforts together so they add up to something bigger than a set of individual programs?

Nesle, New York Life Foundation: We’re focused on the ecosystem. Schools were a good example: we found the gap and tackled it from multiple angles. Our workplace grief initiative follows the same model. School makes sense for children since that’s where they spend most of their time; for adults, it’s the workplace.

So we built a free, voluntary program for companies, starting with training, but expanding to policy templates, manager guidance and resources for HR teams. The first goal is just getting companies to acknowledge that grief affects productivity, emotional health, and culture. From there, we want them to build that acknowledgment into how their support model is structured — not just a one-time training, but policies and practices that reflect the reality of how grief actually works.

We’re taking the same approach elsewhere: a healthcare initiative with Yale training frontline workers on how to talk about death, deeper school partnerships through the PTA, and work with children’s museums, another place parents learn how to support their kids. We want to meet people where they are and raise awareness.

One way I explain this: I recently spoke at SHRM, a major HR conference, and asked the room how many had gotten married while working. Most hands went up, and I reminded them how colleagues threw showers, asked about the honeymoon, remembered anniversaries. Then I asked who’d had kids while working. Same story: gifts, excitement, people still asking years later.

Then I asked them to think about losing someone while working. People give condolences at first, maybe come to the funeral. But very quickly, no one asks about it anymore. Few check in on the anniversary of a loss, or know you’re buried in probate paperwork months later.

The point is simple: having a child changes your life and how you show up at work, and so does losing someone close to you. Yet the workplace does almost nothing to acknowledge it. It doesn’t take much: a word, a note, a casserole. In our workplace research, we hear it constantly: people who felt supported at work say they’ll never leave; people who didn’t say they couldn’t imagine staying.

That’s the goal: look at the whole ecosystem, fill the gaps, and get more people thinking about how to be more sensitive to this.

NationSwell: For other social impact leaders who may see grief as important but hard to act on, what would you say is the first step? Where can institutions begin?

Nesle, New York Life Foundation: There’s been a lot of talk about mental health, wellness, and culture in companies, and this is a huge part of that. All these moments in the life cycle matter. We talk a lot about bringing your whole self to work: that can’t just mean the fun parts, it has to mean all of it.

On the flip side, talking about death and about those we’ve lost doesn’t have to be sad. Grief is love, and that means you likely have great memories of the people you’ve lost. They’re still with you in many ways, still motivating you. About a decade ago, we ran the Shared Grief Project, asking athletes and other prominent people who’d lost parents young about how it affected them. Almost all talked about how it built resilience, how that adversity fueled them and made them better at what they do. None of them would have chosen it, but they found strength and resiliency.

This November, to mark the $100 million milestone, we’re launching an initiative we’re excited about, centered on hope and positivity, the brightness that comes from talking about the people we’ve loved and doing it in community. I always tell people considering an investment in this space: spend a night at a bereavement camp with kids. People assume it’ll be sad. It’s the opposite. It’s camp, it’s fun, and these kids relax because they realize they’re not the only one carrying this. For a weekend, that burden is shared, and they can just enjoy being together. There are tears, yes, but it can also be joyous: celebrating those people and everything you carry forward from them.

Launching in mid-November, our new initiative, the Golden Sweater Project, will be about raising a national conversation and bringing out positivity where society typically limits us to sadness. We want to bring in everyday people and public figures alike to show the humanity in grief. It affects all of us. Nobody’s immune.

Restoring Social Connection in America: The Promise and Peril of Technology, Media, and Digital Life

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Deficits of trust, empathy, and a sense of common purpose are defining characteristics of the current moment in America. But while algorithmic feeds, AI-generated content, and fragmented digital media environments can foment division and deepen social isolation, the same underlying tech and infrastructure also holds immense promise to broker dialogue, trust, and positive human relationships.

On September 16, NationSwell hosted part two of a two-part MainStage series on Restoring Social Connection in America, where a panel of leading experts and practitioners explored the essential role companies, media leaders, and institutions must play in shaping a less divisive information ecosystem and a healthier digital world for us to inhabit.

Our featured panelists included Baratunde Thurston, writer, host, and producer of Life With Machines; Jillian Racoosin Kornmeier, Executive Director, The Foundation For Social Connection; Jackie Jantos, CEO of Hinge; and Carrie Varoquiers, Chief Impact Officer of Workday Foundation.

The conversation offered a hopeful reminder that, despite the widening deltas between us, there are still meaningful opportunities for leaders and institutions to step in and reshape the way technology impacts human connection. Some of the key insights from the discussion appear below.

Watch the event in full:

Takeaways:

  • Companies can be successful when they design and invest in products that result in real-world connection, rather than additional screentime. Some businesses are building products that measure success by whether people move offline into real relationships – capping how long conversations stay in-app, facilitating meetups around shared interests, or helping people stay connected after events end. Philanthropy and business have great opportunities to resource these pro-social technologies in a moment when many emerging tools and platforms encourage isolation over connection.  
  • In the workplace, prioritize human interaction for high-stakes conversations, even when it feels more difficult. Performance feedback, conflict, and career development conversations are increasingly moving online or into conversations with AI, quietly eroding trust in the workplace. Employees are defaulting to back-and-forth emails and managers are leaning on AI-drafted messages to deliver feedback rather than direct conversations. Reserving these moments for face-to-face interaction – in person or video – can build trust between colleagues and managers, even as AI takes on more of the day-to-day work. 
  • Track workplace connection and trust with the same rigor as productivity. Workplace research shows AI is boosting worker confidence and efficiency, but also replacing peer brainstorming and feedback. Younger workers report the sharpest effects, with notable numbers sharing they feel lonely at work. Measuring indicators – like trust, belonging, and social resilience – alongside output metrics can surface these risks early and lay the groundwork for more positive human connection in the workplace. 
  • Build deliberate friction back into relationships that technology or AI may smooth away. AI companions increasingly remove friction – like disagreement, discomfort, and asking for help – that give human relationships value and help people grow. Workplaces optimized purely for AI efficiency can perform well in the short term, but risk becoming relationally fragile in crises or hard conversations. Designing products or moments that restore this friction helps people build self-awareness and teams practice resilience they may need to navigate critical difficult moments.
  • Invest in social infrastructure. A lack of third spaces contributes to feelings of loneliness and isolation. Some organizations are responding by building new social infrastructure – transforming underused transit land into public soccer fields and hosting buildathons where neighbors create place-based tools that strengthen local connection. Investing in existing third spaces, like public libraries, is equally as valuable. 
  • Advance policy that evaluates technology’s effect on connection. Meaningful reform can include annual transparency reporting and evaluating tools based on whether technologies facilitate connection or deepen isolation. Federal policy advocates and national coalitions have pushed for related legislation, and states and cities continue to move quickly to prioritize this work. “Small-p” policy – everyday choices that individuals, families, and workplaces make about technology – also carries significant weight. 

Key Quotes:

“Philanthropy, venture capital, enterprise tech should support and shape the market for pro-social technology together with entrepreneurs to ensure that as AI systems grow more powerful, our human relationships can flourish as well.”
— Carrie Varoquiers, Chief Impact Officer, Workday 

“There are a lot of ways that we could approach technology, but I think our bigger opportunity is to change how we approach ourselves… We’ve got to just take a breath, you know, slow it down… We are due for some practice at reconnecting in many different ways and there can be a role for technology to do that. I don’t want to come across as saying there’s no path there; I just want to make sure that we’re the ones that are owning it even in how we speak of it. We have to decide that we want this.”
— Baratunde Thurston, Writer, Host, and Producer, Life With Machines

“Individually, we know that chronic isolation and loneliness is bad for our health, our physical health, our mental health, our memory, and it’s bad for us as communities, we are less civically engaged and more disconnected. But on the inverse, we actually know that social connection is protective. It can help us boost our survival and actually as communities make us healthier and more resilient.”

— Jillian Racoosin Kornmeier, MPH, Executive Director, Foundation for Social Connection

“We’re in a pretty seismic moment of technological innovation, and some days it feels like we’re climbing uphill with the frictionless experiences that are keeping a person in a very isolated technological environment when, in actuality, we want people to get off the app and go meet up with someone in person. There is no more powerful way to come into who you are as a person than sitting in front of someone and engaging with them one-on-one.”
— Jackie Jantos, CEO, Hinge

Be sure to also check out our recap of part one of the series, which took place in June: Restoring Purpose in America: Common Purpose through Service.

Impact Next: An interview with The Carter Center’s Paige Alexander

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

At a moment of inequality and division, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster under-served communities? Whose work is fostering the inclusive growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact? 

In 2026, Impact Next — an editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Paige Alexander, CEO of The Carter Center, about what it means to lead an institution shaped so deeply by its founders; how The Carter Center is carrying its global health and peacebuilding legacy into a new era; and how to source and refine more durable forms of hope. Here’s what she had to say:

Raymond Hutchison: You’ve mentioned before that you transitioned to The Carter Center from an organization that was founder-led to one that is guided by its founder’s principles. What was it like working with or for Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter, and how has that experience impacted you as a leader?

Alexander, The Carter Center: I had the benefit of coming back in 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though President and Mrs. Carter had spent one week every month up here in Atlanta for 35 years, the pandemic meant that I had to go down to Plains, Georgia every month to meet with them, and that was a great opportunity. 

They were in their own home, a very simple, ranch-style house, and you were two and a half hours away from Atlanta, so really not only outside the Beltway of Washington, but truly in Middle America in many ways.

To listen to their stories, and to have the opportunity to understand how what they saw at the end of the road in Mali and Sudan was similar to what they saw at the end of the road in rural Georgia, in terms of helping people, was really meaningful.

For me, it was also an opportunity to kick the tires on a couple of issues that came up in my first few years. The 2020 election was teeing up, and I felt like we had to work domestically if we were going to be credible overseas in all the elections we were supporting there. President Carter went along with the idea that we could start doing domestic work, and that was a pretty big shift. But he also knew that we had to go where we needed most and where we had something unique to offer.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, I called him and said, ‘We’ve got to do something,’ and he said, ‘There are people in the neighborhood who will take care of Ukraine. We need to be where the neglected people are — dealing with neglected tropical diseases at the end of the road. That’s where people aren’t paying attention,’ he said, ‘and that’s where we should be.’

So I got a very good sense from him of what his North Star was, and that allowed me to recognize where this organization had to go in order to continue to be founder-inspired, even though it wasn’t founder-led.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What is the “North Star” of your leadership style? What is it about the way that you lead in the space that makes you an effective leader?

Alexander, The Carter Center: It’s hard for international NGOs to build legitimacy, and when one does, it’s usually because of things like inclusion, transparency, accountability — all the buzzwords that let people know you’re not going anywhere. 

So for me to come in and think I was going to have a brand-new North Star didn’t feel right, particularly when we had all of these preexisting commitments we needed to honor: eradicating Guinea worm, eliminating other neglected tropical diseases, staying true to human rights… my North Star became very much aligned with theirs.

And I knew that because in all of the work I had done— whether it was in the federal government or with other nonprofits — what people understand, respect, and trust are the people who go to the end of the road with them to complete something, not someone who’s coming in to do a project. So in the end, it was pretty easy to adapt my North Star to theirs.

Hutchison, NationSwell: My impression is that you’re on the road quite a bit. When it comes to social impact, what does proximity mean to you, and how does that influence you as a leader?

Alexander, The Carter Center: Proximity is important — I feel that it defines us. We’re more than 3000  people, and 99% of our staff in the field are local. We don’t have a lot of American or third-country nationals as our chiefs of party, so they don’t always get a lot of overlap with management, per se. So my ability to go out and meet the staff in the field and understand what their pain points are is incredibly important — that’s how I learn.

President Carter and Rosalynn Carter always believed in hiring locally and making sure programs were grounded in local needs, not simply what headquarters was presenting, and to me that’s really important. It’s not one-size-fits-all: What I see in the DRC is not necessarily relevant to Ethiopia, just like how what I see in Arizona is not necessarily relevant to what I’m seeing in Pennsylvania.

But I think being here in Atlanta is equally important; it’s helpful to be around to make sure I’m listening the whole time and reacting appropriately.

I think that’s the most difficult thing about management: you can’t be on a train, or in a boat, if no one is rowing with you.

Hutchison, NationSwell: The Carter Center has recently expanded its domestic work around conflict resolution, democracy, and the integrity of elections. Having seen social and political instability internationally, what feels similar to this moment in America, and what feels different?

Alexander, The Carter Center: When The Carter Center started out, we were initially peace-focused; it was largely about human rights and conflict resolution.

President Carter felt like he could bring people together around a table — all of our buildings here are literally round, because he didn’t want anyone’s back to be in a corner. So, our entire raison d’être was specifically focused on human rights, conflict resolution, and convening people quietly to have those conversations. And then as he traveled, he saw health problems emerging at the end of the road. That became equally important, because both he and Mrs. Carter saw health as a basic human right. 

When you think about how we have changed, and what we have seen, that’s one of the reasons we’re doing more domestic work now. In our conflict resolution work, we were named in the Colombia Peace Accords; we were named in Mali as an observer; we’ve done so much work in Israel-Palestine; we’ve worked in Sudan and South Sudan. In all of those places, we were seen as a neutral voice and a place that could reconvene people.

To be able to go into states here is more difficult, because as The Carter Center, we are the center of a former Democratic president. That makes the work much more challenging, but there are similarities in how we approach it. We don’t have to worry about fighting warlords, but we do recognize that you have to take a left-leaning lead and a right-leaning lead, have them build a community, and find a place where they can agree on something — and that is an incredibly powerful message to people who are listening. 

In North Carolina, for example, they see a former Republican Supreme Court justice sitting on stage with a former Democratic mayor from Charlotte, and the two of them are disagreeing respectfully. That moment shows people that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are some issues where we can talk, find the low-hanging fruit, and build from there.

We do that with warlords, and we do it with political parties here. I think that helps with polarization because we’re not there just to talk at people — we’re there to listen and hear what might be the easiest problem to solve, and what might be the lowest-hanging fruit we can grab onto and build from.

We’re also using lessons from places like South Africa and Northern Ireland to ask: What have we learned? How can we disagree better now, so that when the coin flips and the other side is on top, we know how to do that in a way that’s not vengeful?

Hutchison, NationSwell: Striving for a healthier and more peaceful world is a demanding job for an organizational leader. What are some of the strategies you’re employing in your own life to make it healthier and more peaceful?

Alexander, The Carter Center: Mrs. Carter focused so much on mental health — and destigmatizing it in particular — even as many as 50 years ago, and I think COVID went a long way toward doing that. There isn’t one person you’ll have a conversation with who doesn’t have a family member or a close friend who had a mental health crisis during COVID or post-COVID. And even now, we’re in such a polarizing time. So how do you have these conversations, and how do you take care of yourself?

Our mission statement is to wage peace, fight disease, and build hope. And hope is not a policy, but it is something that we all have to hold onto. Every part of the world has gone through something similar at some time or another, so we’re not alone.

If you can find like-minded people, have one good conversation a day, and find one appreciation for something positive that happened; it really helps ground you.

And if you can turn off the noise, that’s also incredibly important. I am not on social media anywhere near as much as I probably should be, because even those alerts and breaking news notifications can be overwhelming.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are some of the programs, signature initiatives, or facets of the work that you’re doing right now that feel particularly exciting or top of mind for you right now? 

Alexander, The Carter Center: With global health and peace being our focus, and with The Carter Center having started as a peace-focused organization and then grown into global health, President Carter had a wonderful quote that he always used, from his high school teacher: “We must adjust to changing times and hold true to unchanging principles.”

For me, when we’re looking at our signature initiatives, we have to honor our existing commitments. We started down the path of eradicating Guinea worm, and we were doing it in a very specific way. We were getting closer, and then the disease jumped to animals. So how do we adjust to that? How do we address a disease that has moved from humans to animals, and therefore can move back again?

That is probably our signature initiative on the health side, because no other disease has been eradicated except for smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine; Guinea worm is being eradicated through behavior change — by teaching people how to collect water differently than they have for generations and generations.

And the fact that that behavior change has led to only 10 human cases in the world last year, down from 3.5 million cases a year in 21 countries, is remarkable; that’s one of our biggest health initiatives.

Also on the health side is that mental health piece. Everyone cares about mental health now, and that was not true six years ago; it was still very stigmatized, and people wouldn’t talk about it. Now, we’re finding ways to address it through school-based behavioral health and through caregiving.

Mrs. Carter said there are four types of people in the world: those who have caregivers, those who are caregivers, those who will need caregivers, and those who will be caregivers. That’s all of us. So recognizing the need for mental health and caregiving is another important piece of the health side.

And then, when you look at the peace side of the house, there’s no shortage of conflicts. Our job is to continue to place ourselves in the middle as a neutral party that’s willing to talk to both sides and see if we can find space where we can agree on something.

We’ve been really successful in that, not only because of President Carter’s voice — because he could just pick up the phone, knock heads together, and say, “This has to be done” — but because of that legacy. Generationally, in these countries, The Carter Center can walk in with a kind of clean slate, and that gives us a special place at the table.

We also continue to raise the flag on human rights, human rights abuses, and rule of law issues that affect human rights. So it’s a little bit of everything, but those are probably the top four focus areas.

For me, it’s like a graduate school education to be surrounded by colleagues who have devoted their lives to this work, and then to go that last mile and talk to people who have recovered from Guinea worm — people who are now working with us as health volunteers, or working directly for the ministries.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are some of the things that are giving you hope at the moment?

Alexander, The Carter Center: For me especially, President and Mrs. Carter planned incredibly effectively for the future, and they also gave us an extraordinary off-ramp. During COVID, they stopped coming up every month to spend time here, and that allowed all of us to grow into ourselves and determine what this organization was going to look like when they were no longer active.

They had been talking about that transition for 25 years. And even though we only truly lost them in the last 18 months, they had established this foundation for us that I can build from. That gives me a lot of hope.

I feel like I’m leading an organization that has great ideas every day. The work is choosing which ones we really want to double down on, while still honoring the commitments we already have and continuing to innovate and learn all the time. That’s hopeful.

I see our work as preserving democracy and making headway — not only overseas, but in our own backyard — and we can’t do that unless we’re willing to be honest about where our own foibles are, and apply that honesty to every lesson we have learned.

That honesty and transparency also give me hope. It means we’re not walking around life with blinders on. We’re asking: What does the big picture look like, and how can we effect change?

Raymond Hutchison: Let’s say you’re having guests over; what are you putting on the record player. What books are you going to lay out for them to see? 

Alexander, The Carter Center: I just went through one of our bookshelves recently, and Ta-Nehisi Coates was the first thing I saw — and it was in Dutch. When did I ever think I was actually going to read that in Dutch?

It really depends on what kind of person was coming over. I could have jazz or piano music on if I were looking to lower the vibe, and I’d be very happy to have Springsteen on if I were trying to get people hyped up.

As far as books go, Peter Attia is on my bookshelf right now, because I was living off this idea that I was going to get healthier and be better. And then there’s Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, which feels very relevant because I’m in the sandwich generation. I have parents in their 90s and kids in their 20s, so I think I’m drawn to books that help me think about how you treat both generations, and how you find your place in the middle of that.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What is one call to action you have for other impact leaders in this moment?

Alexander, The Carter Center: Hope can’t just be something we talk about in the abstract. It has to mean staying engaged — especially when the work feels hard, or slow, or discouraging. We have to look at the generations around us, older and younger, and recognize that if we don’t make a difference now, we’re missing the moment.

A lot of that engagement has to happen at the subnational level. That’s something we’ve learned overseas: not everything happens at the national or federal level, and we need to learn that here in the U.S., too.

How are you involved in your community? How are you proximal to solving local problems? So much of this work is going to come from the ground up. We can’t wait for government or policy to take care of everything; we have to build from trusted local institutions — the places people already know, rely on, and feel safe turning to.

Here in Atlanta, for example, we run a domestic violence program that works through fire stations. Someone experiencing domestic violence — especially a child — may not feel comfortable walking into a police station, but they might walk into a fire station. There are 36 fire stations in Atlanta and only six police stations; they’re close, they’re trusted, and people show up.

That’s what we all have to work toward: finding trusted institutions where we’re willing to show up, listening to each other, and making them stronger. That’s what builds social cohesion — not talking past each other, not othering each other, but creating places where people can be seen, heard, and helped.

NationSwell MainStage: Restoring Purpose in America: Common Purpose through Service

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Across the country, Americans are searching for deeper connection: to one another, to their communities, to a shared sense of purpose. At the same time, trust feels increasingly fragile, social isolation remains widespread, and many people are looking for concrete ways to bridge divides that can often feel too large or too entrenched to overcome.

Service offers one meaningful place to begin. By inviting people to work alongside one another in pursuit of a shared goal, service creates opportunities for connection that are grounded in action, presence, and mutual responsibility. It can help young people cultivate empathy, confidence, and civic-mindedness; help communities build bridges across lines of difference; and help institutions create more durable pathways into leadership, belonging, and public life.

During NationSwell’s MainStage event Restoring Social Connection in America: Common Purpose Through Service and Community Engagement on June 8, 2026, panelists explored how service can function as both a personal and collective pathway — supporting young people as they move between education and career readiness, strengthening mentorship and intergenerational relationships, and helping communities build the infrastructure needed to make connection possible at scale.

Our featured panelists included Secretary Jonny Dorsey, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation, and Senior Advisor to Maryland Governor Wes Moore; Jennifer Hoos Rothberg, Executive Director, Einhorn Collaborative; Aneesh Sohoni, CEO, Teach for America; Ginneh Baugh, Chief Impact Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America; and Greg Weatherford II, Director, The Allstate Foundation and Social Impact.

The conversation offered a hopeful reminder that restoring social connection does not require waiting for perfect conditions — it can begin through small, practical invitations to serve, to mentor, to lead, to listen, and to show up for one another. Some of the key insights from the discussion appear below.

Watch the event in full:

Takeaways:

  • Service can be a threshold experience. Early experiences with service can shift the way young people engage with the world around them, helping them to cultivate empathy, curiosity, and civic-mindedness in ways that ultimately strengthen social cohesion.
  • Service helps young people create career pathways out of purpose. Research shows that today’s young people crave purpose-driven careers and experiences — an opportunity to position service as a meaningful first step toward leadership, human skills, and long-term professional growth.
  • Mentorship is a practical antidote to social isolation. Connection requires presence and mutuality, not credentials or perfection. Mentorship opportunities are a portable, accessible way to help people build trust, feel seen, and cultivate relationships across lines of difference.
  • Youth-led service strengthens communities. Research shows that youth-led service can help meaningfully strengthen career readiness, connection, and resilience, making it both a viable career development strategy and community impact strategy.
  • Government, philanthropy, nonprofits, businesses, and local institutions all have a role to play in making service possible at scale. The Maryland Corps/Service Year Option is just one example of how service can address real public problems, bridge social divides, and connect young people to workforce opportunities.
  • Invite young people into service early, and make the pathway visible. Young people are ready to lead, but adults and institutions have a responsibility to invite them in. Speaking to young people early and often about service as a meaningful pathway to leadership and purpose can create the necessary first conditions for them to take a meaningful leap.

Key Quotes:

“As human beings, we are social animals. We find meaning through connection; we find love in our relationships with each other. Social connection is not a nice-to-have; this is a necessity for individual and collective thriving. The most important moments in your life likely have to do with other human beings who you felt loved by and engaged with.”

— Jennifer Hoos Rothberg, Executive Director, Einhorn Collaborative

“Our current college generation wants purpose-driven careers, and they’re thinking deeply about community. Put yourself in the shoes of an average 22-year-old: it was sometime during elementary school that social media came to be for them, and it was sometime during middle school and high school that they confronted the pandemic. Both have been drivers of social isolation in many ways, and so it’s not surprising that they’re pushing back and rejecting some of the institutions that they feel isolated them. They’re in search of being part of a community.”

— Aneesh Sohoni, CEO, Teach For America

“There is a mutuality to mentorship that really doesn’t happen in any other dynamic. One of the things we say all the time is, ‘You don’t have to be perfect, just present.’ Being able to show up as your true self is one of the things that mentorship allows people to do.”

— Ginneh Baugh, Chief Impact Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

“One of the things that really stands out from the research is that 82% of young people are already involved in some form of service, especially when you broaden the definition beyond what’s previously been reported and look at everyday acts of kindness young people are doing. We also saw that there were really strong links between youth-led service and career readiness, connection, and resilience. It was important for us to make sure that that got to live itself out.”

— Greg Weatherford II, Director, The Allstate Foundation and Social Impact

“The beauty of service is that you are solving multiple problems at one time. You are creating value in multiple ways at one time.”

— Secretary Jonny Dorsey, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation; Senior Advisor to Governor Wes Moore

Reimagining Workforce Readiness: Why Mental Health and Human Skills Will Define Success in the AI Economy

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

What if the greatest barrier to workforce readiness wasn’t a lack of technical skills, but the absence of systems that help young people adapt in an ever-changing world? As AI continues to reshape industries and traditional career pathways, the future of workforce readiness may depend less on what young people know and more on how effectively they collaborate, communicate, regulate stress, and navigate uncertainty. Emotional intelligence, mental health, and relationship-building are increasingly emerging not only as “soft skills,” but as essential ones.

On June 10, NationSwell convened a group of cross-sector leaders for a virtual roundtable that moved beyond compliance-driven approaches to career readiness, instead examining how relationship-centered environments, identity safety, and well-being practices hold the potential to strengthen resilience, deepen engagement, and improve long-term workforce outcomes. Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below:

Key takeaways

Invest in early career opportunities as a mental health and workforce strategy. Employment can serve as one of the most effective antidotes for mental health challenges, addressing immediate needs, like a paycheck and a support network, and unlocking long-term potential. Organizations should invest in internships, cross-departmental learning, and other early career opportunities as a means to support young people’s wellbeing and build a stronger workforce pipeline.

Reframe “soft skills” – especially relationship-building – as critical and durable work competencies. As AI takes on more knowledge-based tasks, human connection becomes an increasingly valuable differentiator. Mentorship, peer coaching, cross-functional apprenticeships, and volunteer opportunities can strengthen relationships, improve mental wellbeing, and support workforce development. Participants also emphasized the unique “win-win-win” of employee volunteering and mentoring through nonprofits, which can generate benefits for individuals, communities, and employers altogether.

Embed emotional intelligence across workflows, trainings, and culture. As young people increasingly turn to AI for mental health and career support, they miss opportunities to build socio-emotional skills, like self awareness, social awareness, and relationship management. Organizations can integrate emotional intelligence into everyday work and interactions (especially feedback processes) to strengthen human collaboration, trust, and help-seeking. Dedicated culture roles – such as culture coaches, trauma-informed specialists, and wellness buddies – can then amplify this programming.

Design employee engagement programs that help young people navigate stress, uncertainty, and change. Young people face a number of stressors – from climate anxiety and loneliness to social expectations, relationship violence, and rapid technological change – leaving them feeling overwhelmed and powerless. Leaders emphasized that civic engagement, community participation, and knowledge can help transform this anxiety into agency by giving young people a greater sense of purpose or efficacy over their environment. 

Tailor workforce training to meet educators and managers where they are. Teachers and managers, especially those operating in under-resourced systems, face their own bandwidth constraints and mental health challenges related to AI use and integration. Effective training requires understanding the different realities, priorities, and constraints across sectors, and co-developing tools and resources that range from low-lift, integrable touchpoints to deeper, long-term engagements.

Establish AI guardrails that help young people use AI safely and effectively. With AI regulation, ethical standards, and safeguards still evolving, many young people feel a general anxiety over the technology and many organizations lack clear guardrails for how to best support youth mental health and workforce development. As guardrails standardize, organizations can continue to promote basic AI literacy and responsible, ongoing learning about AI’s impacts and risks. 

Leveraging AI & Technology to Connect More Communities to Quality Healthcare

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Technology is reshaping healthcare access, but progress is uneven. AI, digital tools, and data platforms have the potential to extend care to underserved communities, address workforce shortages, and improve outcomes. At the same time, gaps in infrastructure, trust, and governance risk widening disparities rather than closing them.

On May 5, NationSwell convened a group of leaders from the healthcare, technology, philanthropy, and the social sectors to unpack how AI and technology can be used to connect more communities to quality care. Together, the group focused on practical strategies for deploying technology responsibly, building partnerships that center community needs, and ensuring that innovation strengthens equity, affordability, and trust in healthcare systems. Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below:

Key Takeaways:

Ensure that technology empowers community health workers as relationship builders. AI and tech are most valuable when they augment the work of community health workers rather than substitute it. The trusted, relational role that CHWs play in their communities is the irreplaceable foundation of effective care connection. All technology deployed should be designed to protect and extend that capacity.

Design AI tools with CHWs and communities. The most responsible AI adoption in healthcare requires community health workers and the communities they serve to be active participants in tool design. Without mechanisms for feedback, bias mitigation, and accountability, technology risks widening the very health inequities it aims to address.

Prioritize data security and trust as foundational. Organizations working at the intersection of technology and community health must treat data stewardship with the same rigor as the healthcare system itself. Achieving certifications, committing to governance structures, and designing platforms that bring AI into the human loop are essential to maintaining the trust that makes community engagement possible.

Address the full picture of need, not just point-of-care data. Existing data systems often capture only what brings someone into the healthcare system, missing the co-occurring social determinants of health that shape outcomes. Continuous, relationship-based data collection with the support of technology can surface a more complete and actionable picture that enables both better resource connection and effective advocacy.

Invest in AI literacy and critical capacity for the CHW workforce. Community health workers need both the practical skills to use AI tools effectively and the critical frameworks to evaluate how those tools are designed and deployed. Approaches that build competency while also developing CHW voice in governance and advocacy are critical to ensuring that the workforce shaping communities is not left behind as technology advances.

Build toward interoperability and sustainable models. For community-based organizations to achieve lasting impact through technology, they must be able to integrate securely with healthcare payer systems. Achieving interoperability opens pathways to revenue that sustains mission-driven work in ways that philanthropic funding alone cannot.

Shift the question from “can we?” to “should we?” Across sectors, the most important orientation toward AI adoption is not simply capability, but intentionality. Keeping the focus on how technology can better serve CHWs, and continuously asking whether each application advances their interventions, is the compass that keeps this work on the right path.

Health in Action: Care Needs and Innovations in Rural Communities

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Rural communities face some of the most persistent health challenges in the country—provider shortages, long travel distances for care, limited broadband, higher rates of chronic illness, and underfunded local health systems. Yet, across these same regions, practitioners, employers, health systems, nonprofits, and local leaders are piloting innovative approaches: mobile and telehealth models, community health workers, cross-sector care networks, and employer-backed wellness programs that meet people where they are.

During a March 24 virtual Leader Roundtable, leaders from the NationSwell community came together to discuss the real-world models working on the ground, the operational and financial barriers to scaling them, and the opportunities for multi-sector collaboration that can create more reliable, equitable access to care. Some of the most salient takeaways from that discussion appear below:

Key takeaways

Recognize Community Health Workers as the connective tissue. CHWs are most effective when embedded within communities and linked to broader care systems, bridging social services, clinical care, and local resources. Sustaining and expanding this impact requires flexible funding that meets CHWs where they are by unlocking early-stage innovation, reducing unnecessary restrictions, and resourcing the work already happening on the ground. 

Anchor care in community infrastructure to expand access at scale. Care is most effective when it flows through familiar structures, such as churches and local organizations that have long served as anchors in their communities, rather than relying solely on traditional clinical settings. From faith-based health navigation to in-home support for high-risk populations, training and deploying workers from within these networks strengthens engagement and increases the likelihood that care is sustained.

Leverage technology to unlock reimbursement and coordination. Purpose-built platforms, hub models, and shared infrastructure are enabling community-based organizations to track outcomes, meet compliance requirements, and access reimbursement. When paired with technical support, these tools reduce administrative burden and make it possible to scale impact while maintaining quality.

Use data to prove value and secure sustainable funding. Demonstrating outcomes like increased primary care engagement, reduced emergency utilization, and cost savings is critical to making the case for continued investment. Data not only validates the impact of community-based models but also translates that impact into language that funders and policymakers act on.

Invest in training that is locally relevant and role-specific. Expanding the workforce requires equipping CHWs with training that reflects the populations they serve, from maternal health to behavioral health to chronic disease. Tailored, community-informed curricula ensure that workers are prepared to meet the specific needs of their communities.

Close the gap by aligning systems, funding, and community needs. Persistent barriers like fragmented data systems, limited interoperability, and short-term funding continue to slow progress. Closing the rural health access gap requires deeper coordination, sustained investment in community-based infrastructure, and policies that reflect how care is actually delivered on the ground.

Impact Next: An interview with One Mind’s Kathy Pike

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

At a moment of inequality and division, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster under-served communities? Whose work is fostering the inclusive growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact?

In 2026, Impact Next — an editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Kathy Pike, President and CEO of One Mind. Here’s what she had to say:

Ray Hutchison, Vice President of Community Engagement, NationSwell: What brought you to the field that you’re in now? Was there an early moment or a formative experience that helped shape how you arrived at this role, or your leadership?

Dr. Kathy Pike, President and CEO of One Mind: Before I became CEO of One Mind, I spent 35 years as an academic, as a professor at Columbia University in the Department of Psychiatry and the School of Public Health. Academia is a kind of priesthood, and moving from a full-time faculty role into leading a nonprofit is not a transition most academics make. So something had to shift for me, and it really came down to a couple of moments.

About ten years ago, I was invited by a large multinational company in New York to give a talk on mental health and well-being. I went in for an in-person prep meeting, and they told me there was one condition: I couldn’t say “mental health” or “mental illness.” Those terms were considered too alienating, too stigmatizing. They wanted the talk framed entirely around stress, coping, and resilience.

That stayed with me. The discomfort around even naming mental health felt incredibly restrictive, and I remember giving those kinds of talks and feeling like progress was painfully slow.

Then, a few years ago, after COVID, I was invited back to that same company to give a similar talk. When I walked in, there was a large sign on the door that read something like: “Feeling anxious? Depressed? Want to talk? I’m a mental health ambassador.”

That was a crystallizing moment for me. It was clear we had entered a genuinely new era, one where people were paying real attention to mental health and well-being. And with that shift came a huge opportunity to bridge what we know from rigorous science with what is actually happening in workplaces and communities.

I have always been deeply committed to translational science, to the question of how we take what we know and get it into the hands of people who can use it. That moment made it clear to me that the bridge between science and practice needed to be stronger, and that I wanted to lean fully into building it. When the opportunity came to join One Mind, it felt like exactly the right place to focus that work, to help ensure that what reaches people is grounded in strong science and actually makes a difference in their lives.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What is the “North Star” of your leadership style, and how has it changed over time? What is it about the way that you lead in the space that makes you an effective leader?

Pike, OneMind: Early in my leadership career, I was very focused on building a team that could deliver the work with excellence. I approached leadership in a very task-oriented way. When I thought about hiring or bringing people onto a team, it was largely about finding the right people to get the job done.

And that’s still essential. The work does need to get done, and it needs to be done well. But over time, my thinking about leadership has evolved, and I now see leadership as much more about leading with people. It’s about understanding who individuals are so that they can do the work they’re best suited for. The work they approach with energy and passion, and that allows them to operate at their highest level.

So the question becomes: How do you create the right match between the work that needs to be done and the person who’s doing it? Because when someone is working in an area where they feel alive, engaged, and capable of excellence, they’re simply going to do better work. It’s a subtle shift; the goal of delivering the work doesn’t change, but it changes how I think about leadership, especially when something isn’t working. It changes the questions I ask and the adjustments I consider.

More recently, when we think about building teams, I’ve come to see it less like assembling pieces of a pre-made puzzle and more like building with Legos. You may have an idea of what you’re trying to build, but people bring different strengths and perspectives, and the organization becomes stronger when you build around those differences. When people feel fulfilled and are working in areas they care about and feel strong in, the quality of the work improves as well.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are some of the programs, signature initiatives, or some facets of the work that you’re doing at One Mind that feel particularly cut-through?

Pike, OneMind: I knew I wanted to lead an organization focused on translating science into practice, and One Mind felt like the right fit for a couple of reasons. For one thing, there’s a deep commitment to grounding the organization in science, which aligns closely with how I believe the mental health field needs to move forward. But there’s also a more personal reason: My paternal uncle was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was around 20 years old, before I was born. As a child, I used to visit him with my father on Sundays at Rockland State Psychiatric Hospital, where he lived as a ward of the state for most of his adult life. But more than living there, he languished there. It wasn’t because people didn’t care. There were many deeply committed professionals working at the hospital, but the treatments and the understanding of serious mental illness at the time were very limited. I remember riding home after those visits thinking, we have to be able to do better than this. I’m sure that experience shaped my path toward becoming a clinical psychologist, and ultimately joining One Mind.

One Mind was founded by Shari and Garen Staglin after their son, Brandon, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In contrast to my uncle’s experience, Brandon is thriving today. He serves as our Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer, and the opportunity to work alongside him was an important part of my decision to join the organization. In a certain poetic way, it feels like being able to say, we’re doing better now, Uncle Henry. 

Of course, a diagnosis like schizophrenia is not unlike other serious health conditions where you can do everything right and still face difficult outcomes, but we can do far more now than we once could to help people thrive. One Mind’s commitment to integrating people with lived experience in all our programming under Brandon’s leadership, is enormously valuable and meaningful and ensures that the priorities and perspectives of those we aim to serve shape what we do.

What excites me every day is the way our work pushes the field forward across three core pillars: The One Mind Rising Star Academy supports researchers pursuing bold, breakthrough ideas in neuroscience to better understand the brain and develop new interventions; the One Mind Accelerator brings investment, technology, and innovation into mental health to build scalable, sustainable solutions; and One Mind at Work takes those insights into workplaces, helping organizations rethink how work itself supports mental health and well-being.

Across all three, the goal is the same: to demonstrate that better is possible, and to help make that future real.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are the trends that you’re currently seeing that are giving you hope?

Pike, One Mind: Mental health is definitely having a moment. For a long time, nobody wanted to talk about it. Now everyone does. The advances in science and technology, the innovation, and the level of investment coming into this space fill me with genuine hope and make me deeply optimistic about what lies ahead.

But I’ll be honest about what keeps me up at night. All of this attention may not translate into real impact. There’s a real risk that good intentions don’t actually achieve their aims, and if that happens, the naysayers will say: we invested in mental health, we funded research, we built workplace programs, and nothing changed. They’ll throw up their hands and walk away. That concerns me deeply, because I believe we have a genuine opportunity right now, and I don’t want to see us squander it.

Here’s the challenge: too much of the work in mental health is underdosed. Think about strep throat. A doctor prescribes a very specific antibiotic at a very specific dose for a very specific number of days, because that is what produces results. In mental health, we have evidence-based strategies that similarly require a certain level of frequency and intensity to work. But too often we are asked to make do with less. It’s like telling a doctor to cut the prescription in half and then wondering why the patient isn’t getting better.

At One Mind, we think about this constantly. Good intentions are not enough. We are committed to translating science into programs that are designed and scaled for real impact.

And here is what I keep coming back to: we are living in a moment of extraordinary possibility. The science is stronger than it has ever been. The cultural openness is wider than it has ever been. The investment is growing. If we do this right, if we stay grounded in evidence and committed to reaching the people who need it most, I believe mental health will lead the way to a broader and more expansive understanding of what it means to be healthy. Not just mentally healthy, but fully, wholly healthy. That future is within reach, and that is what drives me every single day.

Hutchison, NationSwell: How are you thinking about AI in this moment? Is there a future where it’s a force for good? And if so, what does that look like? How do we get there?

Pike, One Mind: It’s not a future where AI becomes a force for good; it’s already here. AI is power, and it is potential. In many ways, it’s like water or money: what matters is how you use it.

In mental health and well-being, AI offers tremendous opportunity. Population-level data show that the burden of untreated mental health conditions is enormous, one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. And the vast majority of people with these conditions, whether in high-income countries like the United States or in lower-income countries and communities in the US, are not receiving treatment.

There are many reasons for that. Stigma remains a barrier, access to care is limited, and AI can help address both. It can expand access to information and support in ways that feel more private for people who are hesitant to seek care openly; it can help standardize aspects of care and reduce administrative burdens, like documentation and record-keeping, that take time away from clinicians. In those ways, AI has the potential to dramatically increase access and improve how mental health care is delivered.

But there is also real risk. We’ve already seen cases where people turn to tools like ChatGPT or other AI systems for mental health support, even though those systems aren’t trained to manage clinical risk. There have been tragic outcomes, which underscores how important it is to approach this thoughtfully.

We are addressing the issue of AI and mental health across all our programs. What is ethical use of AI for our One Mind Rising Star Award researchers? How can we responsibly support companies that are creating AI-enabled interventions in our One Mind Accelerator? How do we bring best practices to this new world of work for the companies we work with through One Mind at Work. Workplaces are all grappling with what AI means for their industries and their workforces. Jobs will change. Some roles may disappear, and new ones will emerge. All of us will be working differently in the years ahead.

So from my perspective, AI brings enormous opportunity and enormous risk. Our future will be shaped by the choices we make now. We need to be intentional about building AI in ways that advance our shared aspirations: improving the human condition and strengthening people’s health and well-being. And if we see risks emerging, we have a responsibility to act in ways that reduce harm and optimize good outcomes.

When there is choice, there is risk. But there is also the possibility of getting it right.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are some peer leaders out there that you admire, particularly leaders in roles at other organizations, or companies, or nonprofits whose work you hold in high esteem? Is there anybody else out there that we should be pointing a finger in the direction of as another great example of a human being or an organization?

Pike, OneMind:  One organization that serves as a North Star for me is the Kennedy Forum, founded by Patrick J. Kennedy. I believe Patrick is the most important and effective national spokesperson on mental health today when it comes to advocacy, parity, and advancing solutions that matter for society as a whole. The organization’s CEO, Rebecca Bagley, is also an incredibly thoughtful, strategic, and compassionate leader who is helping carry that mission forward.

Patrick’s leadership was especially top of mind for me recently. This past Monday, he convened a major gathering at the National Press Club that brought together mental health leaders and policymakers. The event opened with an interview featuring his cousin, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Patrick and Secretary Kennedy have very little in common politically, and Patrick acknowledged that directly. As he closed his opening remarks, he said many people were probably wondering how he could stand on that stage and introduce someone whose political views he often disagrees with. But he explained that he was there because the Secretary will help shape the national agenda on mental health and addiction. And those issues matter to everyone. Patrick spoke about how both of them understand, through their own family experiences, what mental illness and addiction can do to individuals and families. He said, essentially, that they may sit in different political camps, but on this issue they share a mission.

For me, that moment captured something powerful. Patrick doesn’t just say that mental health is bipartisan, he treats it as a universal issue and leads accordingly. He’s willing to partner with people he may disagree with in other arenas because the mission matters more. One of my mentors used to say, “Keep your eye on the prize.” That’s exactly what Patrick is doing.

Because of that leadership, he and Rebecca and their team have helped drive real progress, including the Action for Progress on Mental Health and Substance Use — a framework that, if fully implemented, could have tremendous benefits for people across the country. I have enormous respect and admiration for Patrick’s ability to lead with that kind of focus and commitment.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What is the North Star of your leadership?

Pike, OneMind: I think about the North Star of my leadership as a three-legged stool of values: dignity, purpose, and joy.

As I make decisions about where to spend my energy, whether in my leadership, my social life, or my philanthropic work, those three values are the ones that guide me. I want to feel a sense of dignity, purpose, and joy in the way I engage in the world. If something lacks those things, if it doesn’t feel purposeful, if it doesn’t bring joy, or if there’s an indignity in it for myself or for others, then I know it’s not where I belong.

We live in a world with a frenetic energy that can pull people away from what they care about most. It’s easy to become disconnected, to drift from your center without even noticing it’s happened. But when we are intentional about keeping our values close, we actually have tremendous power to shape the world around us. It shows up in the decisions we make every single day, the small ones as much as the large ones.

So for me, dignity, purpose, and joy are not abstract ideals. They are the stars I use to navigate my leadership and to choose the work that is worthy of my time and energy.

Resiliency and Innovation in Philanthropy

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

A year after sweeping federal funding cuts and mounting political pressure on equity- and justice-focused work, many funders are reexamining how to stay effective and principled in an increasingly constrained and polarized environment—while also stepping up to fill the void left by government withdrawal.

On March 17, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable dedicated to unearthing the future of resilient, adaptive philanthropy. Together, participants explored how funders are retooling their strategies, embracing new approaches to partnership and capital deployment, and designing innovative responses to ensure critical work continues—and flourishes—despite the headwinds.

Some of the most salient takeaways from the conversation appear below:

Key Takeaways:

Build resilience by expanding your role beyond grants.
Funders can use tools like loan guarantees, intermediary contracts, convenings, and data partnerships to unlock public dollars, de-risk capital projects, and move money more quickly to smaller and BIPOC-led organizations. This “beyond-the-grant” posture helps communities weather policy and funding shocks while preserving critical services.

Invest in leaders as people, not just as program drivers.
Sabbaticals, accelerators, and holistic leadership support shift leaders from surviving to stewarding long-term power. Funding wellness, reflection, and capacity functions as essential infrastructure for any durable ecosystem, not a luxury line item.

Move resources at the speed of community need.
Models like the Bridge Project’s direct cash to moms, rapid-response funds for immigrant communities, and crisis cash distributed through platforms such as GoFundMe show how trust-based, flexible capital can stabilize families and organizations in moments of acute disruption. Designing for speed, flexibility, and local decision-making allows philanthropy to meet the moment, not just the grant cycle.

Use data and narrative to protect civic infrastructure.
Tools like the Congressional District Health Dashboard and City Health Dashboard, paired with investigative and movement journalism, help communities see where systems are failing and where solutions are emerging. Revisiting philanthropic origin stories and aligning capital with equity, democracy, and community-defined priorities are critical to strengthening civic infrastructure.

Strengthen the ecosystem through relationships and matchmaking.
“Philanthropic matchmaking,” co-funding, and warm handoffs ensure that promising leaders and organizations can connect with the right capital, even when a single funder cannot meet a need. Transparent feedback, honest conversations about fit, and intentional network-building help great ideas secure flexible, multi-year support and reinforce that no one has to navigate this landscape alone.