Project Examples

The Economic Security Project

Exploring the potential of cash stipends to alleviate poverty

The Economic Security Project is exploring the potential of unconditional cash stipends to enable people to pursue the work and life they choose. In a time of immense wealth, billions still live in poverty, and many in the middle class feel consigned to a future of permanent stagnation or anxiety. Automation, globalization, and financialization are changing the nature of work, and these shifts require rethinking how to guarantee economic opportunity for all. The project’s members believe that cash might be the most effective and efficient way to provide financial security for more people. The project aims to explore how recurring, unconditional cash stipends could work, how to pay for them, and what the political path might be to make them a reality, even while many are engaged in protecting the existing safety net. The project is funding a range of efforts, including academic research, state and local basic income campaigns, and cultural projects related to economic security. The Hopewell Fund fiscally sponsors the Economic Security Project, providing management for nearly a dozen contracts and grants management for community-based organizations, think tanks, advocacy organizations, and NGOs in the United States.

Hollister Confidence Fund

The Hollister Confidence Project is an ongoing global initiative that supports individuals and nonprofits working to strengthen confidence and mental wellness in teens year-round. As a fiscally-sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund, the Hollister Confidence Fund team works with leading experts, including real teens, to help identify the causes that The Hollister Confidence Fund supports, focusing on efforts that improve confidence and inclusion in teens worldwide. In 2021, the Hollister Confidence Fund will grant $1M across 20 nonprofit groups and projects focused on areas including teen mental health, equity for young Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC), safety and inclusion for LGBTQ+ youth, anti-bullying efforts and sustainability. The Hollister Confidence Project also celebrates World Teen Mental Wellness Day, an annual event founded by Hollister in 2020 in partnership with the National Day Calendar that aims to dismantle the stigma around teen mental health. The day was founded to help normalize conversations surrounding mental health and wellbeing for GenZ and build a new appreciation for the power of human connection.

The Learning Together Project Fund

Connecting underserved students with eMentors

The Learning Together Project Fund supports two online eMentoring programs aimed at helping grade 3–8 students in underserved communities achieve their academic and personal potential. These programs, CricketTogether and TryEngineering Together, match classrooms of students with screened adult volunteers, or eMentors, who are employees of sponsoring corporations. CricketTogether focuses on developing literacy skills, and TryEngineering Together focuses on STEM concepts and interest in STEM careers. In both programs, students and eMentors develop an online learning friendship by exchanging email letters about online articles they read in common, as well as news about their lives. Through the 1:1 exchanges monitored through a safe and secure platform, students engage in meaningful experiences that deepen their content knowledge and develop key 21st-century skills, such as communication, collaboration, creative thinking, and problem solving. eMentors boost students’ confidence, motivate them to learn, and open their eyes to the world outside their neighborhood. In return, eMentors enjoy a flexible, rewarding opportunity to make a difference in a child’s life. Through the generosity of funders/sponsors and their volunteers, the Learning Together Project Fund is able to offer its programs to schools free of charge. The Hopewell Fund provides full fiscal sponsorship.