Contribution
Contribution doesn’t come from purpose. It builds it.
The Contribution Project put that idea into practice. We gave more than 1,300 young people across 42 states, DC, and Guam $400 each to act on what matters to them. Trusted with real resources and real agency, they did, and the ripples reached further than any of us expected.
Trust them. Resource them. See what happens.
The Contribution Project serves as a proof point of our ability to bridge research, practice, and system learning in service of understanding purpose cultivation.
It starts with one question: If you had $400 to make a difference in your community, what would you do?
Young people answer in their own words, with their own ideas. We don’t rank them or pick favorites. Every application gets a basic check to make sure it’s eligible, feasible, and safe, and then funded projects are chosen at random.
Before any project begins, every applicant who agrees to take part completes a short research survey, whether or not they receive funds. After projects wrap up, that same survey goes out again. That’s how we learn what contributing actually does for young people.
THE REPORT
One of the first national efforts of its kind. The report shares what contributors built, what they told us about the experience, what got in their way, and the questions we’re still working on.
We didn't set out to ask whether young people care about their communities. We asked what happens when they're trusted with the resources and agency to prove it. What we heard back is more expansive, more human, and left us far more hopeful about the future .
Impact & Stories
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Care kits for kids in crisis
Nysha turned $400 into mental health care kits, packed with sensory tools, calming resources, and a handwritten letter, for elementary and middle schoolers in under-resourced schools. She's since built Mind Matters, a youth-led platform where teens share their own mental health stories.
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Origami that teaches geometry
Ojas turned a hobby he's had since he was six into weeklong origami camps built on a university-designed geometry curriculum. He partnered with his local library to host the sessions, which drew enough kids to empty its shelves.
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Protecting the hearing you have
After watching a family member suddenly lose hearing in one ear, Rishi built workshops teaching elementary schoolers how hearing works and how to protect it. He spent as much time pitching the idea to schools as designing it, and says persistence, not perfection, made the project real.
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A game built for disaster prep
Sragvi built a free, interactive game teaching hurricane preparedness on a $0 development budget, then used her $400 to run hands-on workshops and hand out preparedness kits. It's now used in 37+ schools across nine states, and she rebuilt it in Spanish after meeting a student who couldn't fully engage with it in English.
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Listen to Contributors
Our collaboration with This Teenage Life is an opportunity to hear young people sharing their contribution journeys and documenting their experiences in real-time. Together, we co-created media by, with, and for young people that elevates youth stories in their own voices and brings purpose science to life through authentic, youth-led storytelling.
“When young people are given the tools, support, and encouragement to contribute, they are often capable of making a much larger impact than they realize.”
Spring 2026 Contributor
“The only thing that needs to change for more young people to contribute is showing them that their ideas matter.”
Fall 2025 Contributor
“Communities need to shift from treating young people as receivers of help to treating them as active empowered partners.”
Spring 2026 Contributor
“Our job is to trust them and give them the resources to act.”
“The Contribution Project starts from a simple but powerful idea: young people already have the passion and ideas to make their communities better. Our job is to trust them and give them the resources to act. In Greater Cincinnati, we've seen young people turn small investments into meaningful change while strengthening their own sense of agency, connection, and purpose. That is deeply aligned with Interact for Health's belief that young people should have the power to shape the communities and systems that affect their lives.”
Ross Meyer, Vice President, Strategy, Interact for Health
From a Project to a Collaborative
The Contribution Project showed us what happens when young people are trusted with real resources. It’s one model. Across the country, organizations and individuals are already doing this work in their own ways.
The Contribution Collaborative is a national learning network that brings them together with communities ready to start. Some members will adapt the Contribution Project model. Others will measure the impact of work already underway. All of them will learn alongside people doing this work nationwide.
Purpose Commons will serve as the connective tissue: sharing what we learn, elevating impact, and supporting growth. Together, we can make contribution a normal part of growing up, not something available only to young people who happen to find the right program.
“…their thought partnership to tailor to our youth and program needs has been truly transformative.”
“Joining the Purpose Commons collaborative has been such a bountiful experience. The PC team is thorough and detail-oriented in their operational guidance to embed the Contribution Project into our TALA program, but their thought partnership to tailor to our youth and program needs has been truly transformative. Through TALA, we are supporting the holistic thriving and leadership development of AAPI young people, intentionally creating a safe environment for critical reflection and exploration of identity, culture, and personal history – and all of this work is grounded in values deeply aligned with how Purpose Commons cultivates purpose. We are grateful to be part of the Purpose Commons collaborative to elevate our collective learning and the opportunities we can offer to the young people in our community.”
April Yee, Head of Programs, The Asian American Foundation
“… a real opportunity for complementary partnerships between national and local funders …”
“As we’ve learned from our colleagues in philanthropy with decades of work in place-based and community-based work, there is a real opportunity for complementary partnerships between national and local funders to support efforts like the Contribution Project. These types of partnerships represent a powerful leverage point — where local funders can elevate the voices and needs within communities they have worked alongside for years, while sharing and amplifying impact across communities supported by national funders. This kind of networked learning is especially well-positioned to fuel a virtuous cycle that is both deeply community-based and greater than the sum of its parts”
Jana Haritatos, Chief Science & Innovation Officer, Hopelab
Let’s make contribution a normal part of growing up.
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