Inside the Impact Board: How Katya Hancock Supports Youth Wellbeing in the Digital Age

After 10 years as part of the StartUp Health team, Katya Hancock is now the Founding Executive Director of the nonprofit Young Futures and sits on StartUp Health's Health Moonshot Impact Board. In this chat, she discusses her new organization’s mission to support youth wellbeing and mental health in the digital age. She highlights the challenges faced by young people growing up in a digital world and the innovative solutions her organization is implementing to address these issues. Young Futures is focused on providing support and resources to nonprofits and community organizations that work with pre-teens and teens across the United States.
🌟 Focus on Youth Wellbeing: Young Futures aims to improve youth wellbeing and mental health, especially in marginalized communities. The organization seeks to shift the narrative from focusing on challenges to providing practical solutions.
💡 Innovative Support for Nonprofits: The organization hosts funding challenges to support innovative nonprofits working to improve youth well-being. The first challenge, called The Lonely Hearts Club, focused on addressing loneliness and social connection.
🤝 Building a Collaborative Ecosystem: Like StartUp Health, Young Futures brings together grantees in an ecosystem to collaborate and support each other. This approach helps create a stronger network of organizations working towards common goals.
🌍 Real-World Applications: Examples of supported organizations include Hip Hop Into Learning, which helps kids express themselves and find community through hip hop, and Sesame 3G, which connects seniors, teens, and preschoolers for mentoring and social-emotional learning.
🚀 Challenges and Opportunities: Hancock emphasizes the importance of addressing the digital tension young people face and providing them with the tools to navigate the digital world healthily. She also discusses the need for nonprofit leaders to adopt practices from the for-profit startup world, such as long-term goal setting and effective communication with funders.
🌐 Supporting StartUp Health: Hancock expresses her commitment to ensuring young people are part of the conversation in healthcare. She appreciates StartUp Health's model and media presence, which can help raise awareness about youth mental health and integrate it into broader health discussions.
📈 Personal Insights and Future Goals: Hancock shares her personal journey and how her work with StartUp Health and Young Futures has influenced her views on technology and parenting. She envisions Young Futures becoming more of an entertaining media company to engage and support young people effectively.
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