November 19, 2025
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Press Release
The Youth Mental Health Fund is one of the nation's largest grantmaking funds focused on youth mental health, and one of the few dedicated to supporting culturally responsive care.
NEW YORK, NY (November 19, 2025) — Today, the Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP) announced the inaugural recipients for their newly launched Youth Mental Health Fund (YMHF). The 34 grantees will receive a total of $5.07 million from Liberated Capital, DWP’s funding mechanism and donor community. The grants aim to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people across the United States.
The Youth Mental Health Fund aims to break down financial, social, and institutional barriers that have historically limited access to mental health care for underserved communities. The fund supports organizations whose work advances the mental health of youth, particularly BIPOC, queer, and youth at the intersection of these identities, while building a mental health ecosystem where all individuals can receive the care they need. This fund is part of DWP’s Wellbeing funding priority and highlights the integral nature of healing as described in the DWP’s Reparative Philanthropy™ framework.
With support from seed funder Pivotal, a group of organizations founded by Melinda French Gates, the fund will continue to grant a minimum of $5 million annually over three years. Resources will be distributed to nonprofit organizations and Tribes in the U.S., offering mental health services tailored to the unique experiences of youth ages 12 to 24.
Too often, decisions about youth mental health are made in rooms where young people aren't even present. YMHF changed that dynamic: An intergenerational advisory committee of 14 members, including five youth leaders alongside mental health experts, made the final funding decisions for the grants. This significant youth representation, comprising over one-third of the committee, reflects the DWP’s commitment to centering young voices in decisions that directly affect their communities.
The YMHF Advisory Committee includes the following:
- Mayra E. Alvarez, President of The Children’s Partnership
- Dr. Monica P. Band, Licensed Trauma-Informed Therapist
- Janiah Fields, M.A. Student in Clinical Psychology
- Yolo Akili Robinson, Founder and Executive Director of Black Emotional And Mental Health Collective (B.E.A.M)
- Erica Rodriguez, Ph.D Student in Health Psychology and Clinical Science
“We are elated to grant the inaugural round of our Youth Mental Health Fund," said Edgar Villanueva, Founder and CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project. “The response to this fund was truly extraordinary. We received 1,551 applications, requesting over $206 million in funding. The data is clear — the need for culturally responsive mental health support is profound. This fund will improve the lives of countless young individuals across the country, and the commitment to culturally responsive care has never been more critical. We're actively raising funds to address this urgent need.”
“This inaugural group of grantees embodies the culturally grounded, creative, and strategic approaches that define true youth mental health care,” said Rich Havard, Director of the Youth Mental Health Fund at the Decolonizing Wealth Project. “These organizations care for young people in ways that honor their struggles and strengths. Through the Youth Mental Health Fund, we are investing not only in youth themselves, but in their stories, their healing, and their futures. Care, especially mental health care, can take many forms, and our fund will help ensure that youth have access to the support they need.”
In advancing culturally responsive care, YMHF provides grants and strengthens an ecosystem of organizations that deliver mental health support rooted in cultural identity, language, values, traditions, spiritual practices, and lived experiences. Rather than forcing communities to fit into existing programs, this approach empowers them to design care that works for their young people. Research indicates culturally responsive care isn’t just a feel-good approach; it is an effective one. The fund will also aim to shift perceptions of what community-centered healing and care can look like, while promoting investment in methodologies with proven results.
The cohort of grantees includes organizations and projects such as:
- National Collaborative for Transformative Youth Policy, uplifting policy solutions that respond to the systemic causes of youth mental health challenges, including poverty, racism, discrimination, community violence, and climate change.
- Letters to Strangers, the largest youth-for-youth-led mental health nonprofit, working to destigmatize mental illness and increase access to affordable, quality treatment, particularly for youth.
- Future Focused Education's Community Care Collective, cultivating youth-led ecosystems of care, healing, and civic power in New Mexico.
- Hale Kipa, supporting and empowering Hawai‘i’s youth and families who are navigating trauma, injustice, and systemic barriers.
- Gage Park Latinx Council, addressing queer Latinx mental health on Chicago's Southwest Side.
DWP’s Youth Mental Health Fund is meeting the moment by addressing the unique and intersecting challenges young people face today. These challenges demand urgent, culturally responsive care, greater access to affirming spaces, and competent mental health support. Through the Youth Mental Health Fund, DWP aims to improve the wellbeing and life outcomes of youth across the U.S.
For a full list of grantee partners and to learn more about the fund, visit: https://www.decolonizingwealth.com/initiatives/youth-mental-health-fund.
About the Decolonizing Wealth Project:
Decolonizing Wealth Project’s (DWP) mission is to transform wealth into collective wellbeing. Established in 2018 and led by Edgar Villanueva, an Indigenous, award-winning author and expert on wealth, spirituality, and social justice, DWP operates through three key strategies: sector transformation, storytelling and culture, and reparative giving. DWP’s work has radically transformed the philanthropic sector, facilitating the distribution of nearly $1 billion for social justice efforts. Through Liberated Capital, DWP’s fund and donor community, it has granted over $23 million to support economic solidarity, wellbeing, and earth and climate efforts primarily led by Black and Indigenous communities.
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27 organizations will benefit through Liberated Capital, a fund of Decolonizing Wealth Project, helping to uplift Indigenous efforts across the U.S. to combat the climate crisis.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – November 25, 2024 – Today, the Decolonizing Wealth Project and their funding mechanism, Liberated Capital, announced the distribution of $1 million in grants to 27 Indigenous-led organizations and tribes across the US through their Indigenous Earth Fund (IEF). The funding will support grantees’ efforts to tackle climate change and conservation through traditional Indigenous cultural practices and innovations. Grantees include local organizations working toward ancestral land return, land stewardship and conservation, advocacy, and youth engagement and education.
Since its inception in 2021, IEF has distributed over $4 million in capital to 38 Native-led organizations, and, as a result, has engaged over 200 tribes across the U.S. These grant-making initiatives reflect the Decolonizing Wealth Project’s mission to redirect resources to historically overlooked or marginalized communities, with a focus on supporting traditional Indigenous cultural practices as effective solutions to the climate crisis. Highlights of past grantees who have made significant strides through their climate work as a result of IEF funding include SAGE Development Authority creating the first Indigenous-owned utility-scale wind farm in the U.S; the creation of an Indigenous Storytelling Hub featuring digital shorts and a podcast series set to launch in 2025 by Indigenous Led; dam removal and flow restoration campaigns led by Save California Salmon, and more.
“Indigenous peoples safeguard much of Earth’s biodiversity, yet philanthropy has chronically underfunded their work,” said Edgar Villanueva, CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project. “Our Indigenous Earth Fund addresses this critical gap by channeling resources to Indigenous climate and conservation leaders who have maintained vital ecological knowledge and practices across generations. This fund reinforces our steadfast commitment to Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.”
“Thanks to the generous support of Decolonizing Wealth’s Indigenous Earth Fund, the Bering Sea Elders Group has continued to realize our mission of protecting our traditional ways of life, the Bering Sea, and our children’s future,”
— Jaylene Wheeler, Executive Director of the Bering Sea Elders Group.
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