Deadline: 17-Jun-25
Being is looking to fund bold prevention and promotion ideas that address the early drivers of mental health and wellbeing for the most underserved 10- to 24-year-olds.
Being seeks to fund innovative solutions that meet the context-specific upstream drivers of young people’s mental health and wellbeing along with ecosystem-level efforts that address the broader systemic barriers that hinder sustainable implementation and broader integration of mental health and wellbeing promotion and prevention initiatives.
Pillars
- There are three main pillars of work within Being:
- Learn – They believe learning is a driver for systems change. The research funding and programming aims to understand young people’s mental health needs and drivers in each priority country, help build consensus around priorities for advocacy and funding, and guide funding priorities in research, innovation, and ecosystem building. Additionally, they want to increase the understanding and anticipate the long-term impacts of emerging stressors, like emergencies, urban growth, pandemics, and climate change, on young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
- Invest – They fund and support youth-led organizations to address the drivers of young people’s mental wellbeing identified through the invest pillar. With a focus on prevention and promotion, they invest in new ideas as they’re tested and proven. They also support tested high-impact innovations targeting youth mental health and wellbeing along their scaling journey to help catalyze their sustainability and impact.
- Mobilize – They aim to unite donors, funders, investors, governments, multilateral scaling partners, local intermediaries, and communities by promoting the ongoing exchange of new evidence, innovation and learnings to advance global dialogue and advocate for young people’s wellbeing. They also fund ecosystem building grants to help address systemic barriers preventing long-term implementation and integration of mental health services into related health, policy, and other areas.
Types of Funding
- Proof of Concept (POC)
- Proof of Concept (POC) funding of up to $250,000 CAD over 15, 18 or 24 months is available under the RFP. POC funding supports early-stage innovations to test and refine bold ideas. POC funding not only prioritizes innovations focused on young people, it also prioritizes applications from organizations that are primarily led by young people. The goal of these innovations is to strengthen the pipeline of tested mental health innovations targeted at young people that are developed and managed by young people themselves.
- Areas Of Focus
- Being seeks Proof of Concept innovations that:
- Focus on the prevention and promotion aspects of youth mental health needs,
- Are age and stage appropriate, given the wide age range of the target population (i.e. 10 – 24 years),
- Aim to support and amplify the voices of young people,
- Deliver mental health supports through youth-friendly, health and non-health mechanisms (such as schools), and
- Meet people where they are by integrating mental health and/or wellbeing interventions into existing education or social care systems with a focus on urban and peri urban settings.
- Being seeks Proof of Concept innovations that:
- POC innovations should seek to integrate one or more of the following cross-cutting themes:
- Tackle the outcomes of damaging gender norms and consider the mental health needs of people with diverse sexual and gender identities;
- Consider the distinct mental health needs arising from intersecting experiences of discrimination and marginalization across various identities (such as socio-economic status, religion, etc);
- Acknowledge the influence of power differentials on young people’s mental health and consider the limited agency and autonomy faced by young people;
- Address stigma and discrimination related to mental illness with a specific focus on stigma experienced by young people;
- Creatively leverage technology that is highly used and trusted by young people, while considering rigorous monitoring and evaluation and tracking of priority outcomes.
- POC Target Users
- POC innovations must ultimately benefit the most underserved 10- to 24-year-olds in at least one of the 12 priority countries; however, they may choose to focus on a specific age group within the range of 10- to 24-year-olds. Projects should take into consideration the wide developmental range between 10 and 24 years of age and consider which types of interventions are best aligned with the developmental needs of specific age groups. Innovative solutions should be targeted to the most relevant age group for the country specific area of focus.
- POC Integrated Innovation
- They encourage proposals for innovation in all forms: technologies, products, services, processes, business models, policy approaches and/or delivery mechanisms. Your solutions should include any of the following three areas:
- Scientific/technological innovation: has a base in the psychological, natural, health or behavioral sciences or in engineering or economics; can be simple as there is no requirement for high-tech solutions.
- Social innovation: recognizes and/or addresses the broader social, structural and/or political determinants of health, with a particular focus on gender and intersectional inequalities; addresses local and/or cultural contexts that factor into implementation and scaling.
- Business innovation: maximizes the value, relevance and unique quality of the solution to create demand and financial sustainability; addresses barriers to affordability and accessibility.
- They encourage proposals for innovation in all forms: technologies, products, services, processes, business models, policy approaches and/or delivery mechanisms. Your solutions should include any of the following three areas:
- Transition to Scale (TTS)
- At Transition to Scale (TTS), Being will support promising innovations that have achieved proofof-concept or demonstrated initial positive results of the innovation and have significant potential to achieve sustainable impact at scale or as it reaches more people. The goal is to support innovators to Transition to Scale through the ‘missing middle’ with funding offered between $300,000 CAD and $1,500,000 CAD over 12–48 months.
- There are different possible objectives for TTS funding based on the stage of development of the innovation:
- Generate evidence of impact needed for scale-up, and/or address gaps in existing evidence (e.g. through validation studies)
- Advance planning for scale and sustainability (develop or validate a viable plan, business model, etc.)
- Build organizational capacity needed to scale
- Grow and strengthen strategic partnerships, including diversified funding sources needed for scale, and/or smart partners towards a sustainable end game
- Begin scaling in new or expanded geographies, and/or with new partners
- Areas of Focus
- Being seeks TTS innovations that:
- Focus on the prevention and promotion aspects of youth mental health
- Are age and stage appropriate, given the wide age range of the target population (i.e. 10 – 24 years)
- Aim to support and amplify the voices of young people
- Deliver mental health supports through youth-friendly, health and non-health mechanisms
- Meet people where they are by integrating mental health and/or wellbeing interventions into existing education or social care systems with a focus on urban and peri urban settings.
- TTS innovations should seek to integrate one or more of the following cross-cutting themes:
- Tackle the outcomes of damaging gender norms and consider the mental health needs of people with diverse sexual and gender identities;
- Consider the distinct mental health needs arising from intersecting experiences of discrimination and marginalization across various identities (such as socio-economic status, religion, etc.);
- Acknowledge the influence of power differentials on young people’s mental health and consider the limited agency and autonomy faced by young people;
- Address stigma and discrimination related to mental illness with a specific focus on stigma experienced by young people; and/or
- Creatively leverage technology that is highly used and trusted by young people, while considering rigorous monitoring and evaluation and tracking of priority outcomes.
- Being seeks TTS innovations that:
- TTS Target Users
- TTS innovations must ultimately benefit the most underserved 10- to 24-year-olds in at least one of the 12 priority countries, however they may choose to focus on a specific age group within the range of 10- to 24-year-olds. Projects should take into consideration the wide developmental range between 10 and 24 years of age and consider which types of interventions are best aligned with the developmental needs of specific age groups. Innovative solutions should be targeted to the most relevant age group for the country specific area of focus.
- TTS Integrated Innovation
- They encourage proposals for innovation in all forms: technologies, products, services, processes, business models, policy approaches and/or delivery mechanisms.
- Your solutions should include any of the following three areas:
- Scientific/technological innovation: has a base in the psychological, natural, health or behavioral sciences or in engineering or economics; can be simple as there is no requirement for high-tech solutions
- Social innovation: recognizes and/or addresses the broader social, structural and/or political determinants of health, with a particular focus on gender and intersectional inequalities; addresses local and/or cultural contexts that factor into implementation and scaling
- Business innovation: maximizes the value, relevance and unique quality of the solution to create demand and financial sustainability; addresses barriers to affordability and accessibility
Eligibility Criteria
- All legally incorporated (or the equivalent) organizations based in any country can apply for funding through this RFP. Please note: Only organizations implementing their project in the 12 priority countries, Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Vietnam, will be considered.
- Preference will be given to eligible organizations based on the following order of criteria:
- Youth-led organizations (50% or more of staff in key leadership roles are youth aged 35 and under) based in one of 12 priority countries.
- Organizations based in one of Being’s 12 priority countries.
- Organizations based in any low- and middle-income country partnering with a local organization based in at least one of the 12 priority countries.
- Other eligible organizations.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Being will not fund the following:
- All projects for which the core intellectual property rights are owned by a third-party institution, unless that third party:
- grants the applicant sufficient license rights to the innovation to permit eventual scaling in low and middle-income countries; or
- signs an undertaking to comply with Grand Challenges Canada’s Sharing and Access for Impact Strategy
- Projects implemented in countries outside of the 12 priority countries (implemented outside of Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Vietnam).
- Projects that focus on mental health treatment and care, such as reducing symptom severity for youth with mental health conditions or capacity building of health professionals to deliver treatment and care.
- All projects for which the core intellectual property rights are owned by a third-party institution, unless that third party:
For more information, visit Being.