A $15 million, three-year commitment to helping young people thrive alongside AI across the United States & United Kingdom.
Through three funding challenges, two in the U.S. and one in the U.K., we are backing nonprofits and charities that protect young people’s independence of thought, help them build meaningful relationships, and provide guidance from trusted adults.
The initiative begins with The Unwritten Challenge in the United States.
AI is moving fast. Human development still happens at human speed.
Responding to today’s AI risks while strengthening developmental foundations will help young people thrive, whatever comes next.
Most conversations about AI and youth focus on today’s risks: cheating, companion bots, misinformation, and screen time. Young people also need the capacity to think for themselves, feel fully, and relate meaningfully to navigate whatever comes next.
AI is a developmental question before a technology question.
Promising programs and solutions are emerging across schools and communities, but those lessons rarely travel. Decisions are too often shaped by incomplete stories about young people and AI.
AI is already part of young people’s lives. Our job is to make sure the conditions they need to think for themselves, feel the full range of human experience, and relate to others across difference and difficulty remain intact.
Safety, compliance & policy guardrails are the floor, not the ceiling.
We'll go beyond risk mitigation to proactively support healthy human development in the age of artificial intelligence
Invest
Direct funding to community-rooted and national nonprofits and charities developing solutions with and for young people across the United States and United Kingdom.
Learn
Identify and share what’s working across schools, communities, and learning environments in both countries, with particular attention to young people too often left out of technology decisions.
Translate
Turn those insights into practical tools, frameworks, stories, and guidance that schools, families, and communities can adapt to their own contexts.
Groundwork is a multi-phase initiative designed to build and strengthen the field across the United States and United Kingdom.
Groundworks' three funding challenges are part of a broader strategy to invest in solutions, build shared learning, and help effective approaches spread across schools, communities, and youth-serving systems.
Two challenges will be based in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, bringing different perspectives and experiences into a shared effort to support young people.
Seeding the Field
Supporting community-rooted organizations through direct grants, building ways to listen to young people and their communities across both countries, and connecting what we learn.
This phase prioritizes practical tools, implementation guidance, and narrative resources, alongside partnerships with schools and youth-serving organizations.
Scaling What Works
Building on effective approaches, expanding partnerships, and helping schools and youth-serving institutions put what we learn into practice. Insights from both countries will inform this work, with room to adapt approaches to local needs, school systems, and cultural contexts.
Groundwork UK is a multi-year pilot built by organisations and young people across the UK— helping them thrive in the age of AI.
Funded by Bukhman Philanthropies and led by a UK-based team with support from the full Young Futures team, the programme combines youth listening, research, grantmaking, leadership development, and shared learning to build a more connected field for those working at the intersection of youth and AI.
The programme starts with landscape research, youth listening, and partnership-building across the UK. This work will shape Groundwork UK's inaugural funding challenge, launching Spring 2027. Selected organisations will receive two-year grants and join the Young Futures Academy, with access to leadership development, fundraising and communications support, subject-matter expertise, and peer learning.
The next several years will shape how AI becomes integrated into the daily experiences of millions of young people.
This moment presents enormous opportunity, but also raises urgent questions about agency, equity, learning, wellbeing, and human development. No single organization or sector can answer those questions alone.
Groundwork is an opportunity to help build the infrastructure the field needs — informed not only by technological possibilities, but by what young people need to thrive. We invite you to help shape what comes next.
The First of Two U.S. Challenges Applications Are Now Open
The Unwritten Challenge is Groundwork’s first funding opportunity, supporting U.S. nonprofits helping young people strengthen their critical thinking and judgment in an AI-shaped world. We’re looking for approaches that give young people room to work through challenges and develop their own ideas, with support from trusted adults.
Applications are open through October 16, 2026. Learn more about the challenge and eligibility requirements before applying.
Join us on September 29 to learn more about the Unwritten Challenge. Register here.
Details about Groundwork’s second U.S. challenge and U.K. challenge will be announced at a later date.
Explore the Unwritten Challenge
Awards
$1+ million in funding to support 10+ organizations, with individual awards ranging from $50,000 to $100,000.
Young Futures Academy
Selected organizations will join the five-month YF Academy from April through August 2027.
Application Window
September 23 to October 16, 2026.
Second Challenge
More information about Groundwork's second challenge will be announced at a later date.
Groundwork is backed by Young Futures'
foundational funders:
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With additional initiative support from:
Groundwork UK is made possible with catalytic anchor support from:
Young Futures is a grantmaker, accelerator, and ecosystem builder working with school-based, community-rooted, and national organizations, alongside funders and systems leaders.
Our approach begins with listening to young people and the organizations closest to them, then turning that insight into investment, shared learning, and stories that can help shape the field. Groundwork extends that approach across the United States and United Kingdom, connecting lessons from organizations working in different contexts around many of the same questions.
This effort is part of our broader YF500 goal: supporting 500 nonprofit leaders over five years and building the infrastructure and community necessary to help young people thrive in a digital world.
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We’ve already brought together 20 funders around youth wellbeing and funded more than 50 nonprofits, helping to build the relationships and shared commitment this work requires.
More About Young Futures
About Us
We’re on a mission to make the digital world an easier place to grow up.
The YF500
Funding and scaling a community of 500 innovators across the nation.
Our Impact
Investing in leaders and solutions to shift youth wellbeing.