Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus

Over the past 20 years, suicide rates have been rising exponentially and more young people are reporting major increases in anxiety and depression.  The Surgeon General declared a state of emergency for youth mental health.  At the same time, it's been fairly obvious to most people that we, as a society, have not been overly effective in mitigating the harms caused by early stage, unmonitored social media as it relates to youth.     

As a therapist that works directly with many high risk adolescents, I hear from young people directly about their opinions all the time.  Kids first started saying to me in 2015, “adults created social media, they know it’s harming kids, even killing kids- why aren’t the adults stepping up to fix it? Do they just not care? Are we just the experiment generation”. 

Kids feel overlooked and unheard particularly by elected officials in the government.  "Today's mounting social, political, and environmental crises will require collective action, particularly for equitable outcomes.  More people today are interested in community-focused careers and activities, yet many, especially youth, feel that they do not have a voice or choose not to participate in community, state, national, or global governance." (see MIT SOLVE's Challenge Overview)   

That feeling of not being heard in one's life can lead to more profound feelings of hopelessness, which is an indicator of increased risk of suicide. While it may seem like a stretch to link the increases in teen suicide to a lack of validation or communication with government officials, I have heard directly from kids who have stated that the government's seeming lack of care for important issues such as easy access to pro-suicide how-to videos, slow to react environmental policies, and a restriction on reproductive rights that impact their generation in a profound way is one more reason to feel invalidated adding to a belief that no one really cares for their future so "why should they"?  I have heard numerous personal stories from clients for years who feel like our government is not their government.  In addition, it's no secret kids feel like the old school ways of our civic society are slow to catch on to new trends sometimes at the expense of young people.  

Through Promly’s nonprofit arm and collaboration with lobbying firms (working with us pro bono) as well as youth focused nonprofit partners and new tech startup young founders, we are building The Young Innovators Caucus, a scalable bipartisan approach utilizing new technologies to build better communication and insights with policy makers, innovators, and young people under 25. 

Policy makers have been criticized for being disconnected from the concerns that are currently affecting youth and much of America. Being technical natives, Gen Z offers valuable perspectives especially as it relates to current harms and potential oversights with new technology and other youth focused policies. Promly was already successful in working with Sen. Blackburn and Sen. Blumenthal to build “youth representation” into the Kids Online Safety Act. Prior to our conversations with their staffers, the youth voice was not considered in the KOSA policy despite the fact that young people are the ones impacted and they offer meaningful insights about how technology is received and utilized, as well as imminent dangers that may not be considered.

Promly has recently launched a mobile app with a social ecosystem for youth ages 13-19 (with AI age recognition built in) and another ecosystem for 17+ to connect, empower, support, and provide many real life opportunities for young people to get involved in advocacy and amplify the Gen Z voice.

See Promly app overview on YouTUbe:
https://youtu.be/XfeCzDtwLMw

We’ve consulted with policy makers on what they would ideally want from young people (personal stories, insights, and ideas) but realistically we know our model can’t be a “heavy lift” for already time strapped staffers and politicians. 

In the Promly ecosystem, we will scale the Caucus so that potentially every youth voice in America, whether they are a citizen or not, can be heard through our digital newsletter (highlighting individual stories related to current policies), large scale surveys related to current concerns and virtual meetings with policy teams and 5-7 focus group participants from the Youth Innovators Caucus.

See www.forchangemakers.org

We have an expansive network of some of the brightest Gen Z founders already leading this initiative, but our mission is to give EVERY young person the opportunity to use their voice to collaborate effectively on policies to build our future. 

Promly already works collaboratively with nonprofit partners to give them a space in the Promly ecosystem to amplify their work and reach.  With these partnerships, we already have a vast network of eager young people across the country to participate in the Caucus. 

Further, we have The ChangeMakers Music Festival this Fall at The Prudential Center in NJ - a large scale event aimed at bringing everyone together to address and ameliorate the youth mental health crisis. Celebs, athletes, musicians, influencers, policy makers, nonprofits and Gen Z “changemakers” will come together to change outcomes and  ultimately save lives.  There is also a documentary of the Changemakers Festival and story to follow- allowing for an even greater reach nationally with multiple distribution channels. See deck link for ChangeMakers Festival:

https://docsend.com/view/yf3ytyt4fc2aj467

See Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus overview:

https://docsend.com/view/rf5tm...

If you were to take a survey of Gen Z right now regarding their attitudes towards policy makers, they would routinely say that they don't feel like most elected officials understand them and/or do not have an accurate perspective about the current youth experiences, often citing a high level of disconnect between their generation and the elected policy makers.  

Further, age limits create a barrier to serving in office, and to date, there has not been a widely known way for a large amount of young people from a variety of demographics to be heard in policy unless it's through physical demonstrations. 

The Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus allows the opportunity for all youth in America to participate in learning more about current policies and sharing their voice through our scalable platform built directly into the Promly ecosystem, and also available at www.forchangemakers.org

By empowering youth to learn, share, and contribute to direct conversations and shared insights with policy makers, we will amplify the Gen Z voice, create more relatable policies for all generations, build more sustainable interest in civic action and ultimately restore hope for a generation (and generations to come) that has been at the helm of a growing social crisis for years.    

While I have been a therapist and advocate for young people for over 20 years in many roles, our team has had over 200 students working together to build a solution and advocacy to address the mental health crisis and amplify the Gen Z voice. 

I serve on the Black Mental Health Brain Trust, have spoken before Congressional committees and President Biden’s office to bring light to the fact (informed by many of my suicidal clients) that despite the mass increase in child and youth suicide, YouTube’s “how to tie a noose” and “how to hang yourself” videos still remain readily accessible for every person to end their life within minutes. It should not come as a surprise that one of the major reasons for the mass increase in child (ages 5-11) suicides (81% by hanging) have increased by 6x in the last 5 years and suicide rates among young women have increased by exponential numbers with the majority completed by hanging (a marked change in the “means” from overdoses that were most common previously and are only 2% effective as a means of suicide). 

If I were not “boots on the ground”, hearing directly from kids every day, I would have none of the insights I have that should be shared with policy makers NOW verses waiting for the research that often takes years to compile. It’s a different world, shifting at lightning speed. It’s essential that we build out ways for young people to be “at the table” if we truly want to create effective solutions for this generation.

In addition, our team already has some of the nation’s most innovative young startup founders and entrepreneurs, all passionate to build sustainable products that will absolutely change outcomes in multiple concern areas.

Hirsch Nangia, a 24 year old leader across Finance and Technology, scaled a Commodities Mining business leveraging AI and satellite LIDAR technology. Now focused on adding value to collaborative initiatives across finance, the environment, AI, defense, technology, and education, Hirsch has joined the Young Innovators Caucus leadership team to help build more meaningful communication pathways with policy makers and the next generation. 

Christian Elam,  21 year old LQBTQ ChangeMaker, entrepreneur, 4 time start-up founder, youngest kid to attend Stanford's advanced tech program at age 10, and currently supporting other forward thinking Gen Z entrepreneurs through funding and a Gen Z start up accelerator. Christian was recruited by the CIA at age 17, but turned it down to build out his startups. Now, Christian is part of the leadership team using his expertise to offer insights and technically scale the Caucus.

Our COO, Christina Zausner, has a long standing background working with lobbyists in DC before she joined Promly in 2021 and has been exceptionally helpful defining strategy to make a meaningful impact in policies long term.

With the foundation Promly has already built in multiple markets, the Young Innovators Caucus is exceptionally well positioned to scale and truly change the way that young people view civic action. 

We are applying to SOLVE to broaden our network of ecosystem partners so that we can all work together to create effective solutions in numerous impact areas in regards to civic action as well as a variety of other areas where Promly's ecosystem approach could be helpful to amplify the messaging and accessible solutions that innovative technology provides.

While of course we would appreciate funding, we are truly most interested in working collaboratively with as many organizations as possible to garner more support and continue to build out and scale the Young Innovators Caucus. Public relations and marketing efforts would be greatly appreciated as we have spent little to no money on marketing to date. We have the support of a couple lobbying firms but would welcome more involvement from other lobbying firms as well.  

We have a half built Android version of Promly right now and would certainly appreciate help to build out the full Android version of the Promly ecosystem. We also would welcome data analytics specialists to work collaboratively to build out both the IT architecture and create effective data analytics structures so that we are most ethically and effectively gathering and sharing information from our participants. 

Certainly if there are members of Congress that you believe would want to work collaboratively with young innovators, please make those introductions at any time.  

We are confident as we have been in building Promly, that solutions are only possible if we all work together to identify and amplify the strengths of each partnership we've created so that together, we can truly change outcomes and save lives.      

While there are a couple Congressional caucuses that have youth involvement, they are either for only a select number of young people interested or competing for their voice to be heard or they are one sided efforts that do not focus on a bipartisan approach.  

Creating scalable involvement by thousands if not millions of young people across the country would bring this generation together like nothing we have seen before.  It would allow for more equitable representation in policy (a concept that is spoken in words, but not in action as it relates to youth).  

By bringing young people together, including some major young visionaries in technology and innovation, we may be able to make significant impact with older members of Congress who are not tech savvy and may be previously closed off to new concepts.  We may also invite young visionaries to get closer to the civic action process so that they may further enhance technical solutions collaboratively that benefit the larger civic society.  

Further, embracing civic action in this way with youth allows for a large scale movement that will catapult learning about civic action with a collaborative growth mindset unlike anything we have seen before. 

Even more important, this Caucus, with enough momentum, could actually reverse the way that young people feel as the "experiment" generation that has been overlooked and historically underrepresented.  Youth may actually start to feel hopeful about the future ultimately leading to more engagement in meaningful civic action and better outcomes overall.     

Year One

1. By the end of year one, we will have approximately 1,500 students signed up for the Innovators Caucus and be written into the Architecture of Congress (where caucuses are registered).  

2. We will have distributed 12 monthly newsletters with survey results and policy related lived experiences shared openly with congressional offices, partner nonprofits, caucus members, and lobbying groups.

3. We will have held 6 Zoom meetings with policy staffers, lobbyists and Caucus members.

4. We will continue to meet every 2 weeks with our lobbying teams to further build support for the Innovators Caucus.   

5. We will have built out 25 partnerships with youth centered and policy related nonprofits to work collaboratively to offer opportunity for student participation. 

6. We will have produced and utilized The ChangeMakers Festival and following documentary to further amplify the reach of the Youth Innovators Bipartisan Caucus through over 150,000 schools nationwide. 

Year Five

1. By the end of year five, we will have approximately 50,000 students signed up for the Innovators Caucus and be considered a strong voice in youth policy creation. 

2. We will have distributed 60 monthly newsletters with survey results and policy related lived experiences shared openly with congressional offices, our partner nonprofits, Caucus members, and lobbying groups.

3. We will have held 50 Zoom meetings with policy staffers, lobbyists and Caucus members amplifying the voice of a diverse group of youth from every part of the country.

4. We will continue to meet every 2 weeks with our lobbying teams to further build support for the Innovators Caucus.   

5. We will have built out 75 partnerships with youth centered and policy related nonprofits to work collaboratively to offer opportunity for student participation. 

6. We will have produced 5 ChangeMakers Festivals and films to further amplify the reach of the Youth Innovators Bipartisan Caucus through over 500,000 schools nationwide. 

Measuring progress towards impact goals through defined indicators is fairly predictable as we have built extremely measurable goals.  We can track participation through the Promly app and also through overall engagement with signing up for the Caucus, participation in the writing for the newsletters, and participation in regular surveys.  Evaluating how The Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus is received by policy makers and their staff is essential to the success, future activity, and overall longevity of the caucus.  We will build in evaluation tools so that we are sure we are serving to effectively amplify the youth voice through the Caucus in every means possible constantly looking for new, innovative ways to build out this program and opportunities for learning that truly speak to youth and directly benefit policy makers as well. 

Our theory of change is based on focus group interviews, surveys, consultation and qualitative analysis with other youth focused "boots on the ground" programs that work directly with young people and over 20 years of clinical practice with the target demographic. 

1. Problem: 

Young people do not feel like their voice is heard by policy makers. Policy makers seem overall disconnected from youth insights.  Technology has created lighting fast changes in communication. There is not an effective means of communication for a population that has an interest in advocacy and civic action, but is not able to serve in office. 

2. Program:

Design and implement a large scale, easily accessible youth caucus that represents all youth demographics across the US.   

3. KPI's:

Measurement of youth participation through signups, surveys, social media engagement, as well as policy maker team participation and engagement with the digital newsletter, zoom calls, and requests for subject matter youth experts for policy related goals.    

4. Expected Outcome:

Policy makers and young people will eliminate the perception that civic action is only for politicians.  Youth in America will feel empowered by participating the in the Caucus.  Given the bipartisan nature of the Caucus, we will be able to evoke a more collaborative mindset starting at a young age.  The existence and successful PR of the Caucus will give this generation and those to follow hope for the future of our country.  In a perfect world, that increase in individual and collective hope will be a contributing factor to fewer losses of young lives to suicide.        

Our technology is fairly straight forward. We have already built a social ecosystem mobile application that provides an "all in one place" model for youth engagement.  By bringing together youth networking and connection building, accessible mental health support, opportunities to complete life goals, and pathways to easy access advocacy channels for civic engagement, we feel quite confident that we will build a healthier future working together for young people (with young people), our government, and society as a whole.      

Our mobile application is a place for numerous other nonprofits, innovative startups, and youth to come together to create lasting change within themselves and through in real life opportunities in their community as a whole.  Given the many opportunities that we are serving up to this "algorithm" generation through our built in AI, machine learning, and integration of innovative tech tools such as built in biofeedback for anxiety and panic attacks as well as layers of mental health support, we believe we give kids what they want and what they need, all in one place.   

The Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus is a direct effort to amplify the voice of those that have been traditionally unheard in policy.  Throughout our collaborations with youth focused nonprofits, schools, other startups, and youth themselves, we have made many strides in building an accessible model that includes layers of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the very core of the mission to amplify unheard voices in policy and civic action. 

Populations served:

The Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus includes service to youth across the US and policy makers both in the US and there is potential for global reach as well.  

Value Added for Youth: Youth caucus participants are able to easily utilize their voices in advocacy and collaboration with staff teams of policy makers and each other to build better and more seamless communication channels.  This communication opportunity will allow for increased exposure to new ideas, learning, and efforts to impact change in policy so that the youth voice is consistently heard in a way that it never has been valued before.  

Value Added for Policy teams:  Policy makers are always looking for more votes.  Likely, this caucus will allow for better communication channels with participating members of Congress, thereby, likely increasing the number of young voters who feel like their work with policy makers creates more votes  for those leaders long term.  Further, our youth leaders will provide insights and opinions that will give policy leaders a competitive edge over their opponents.  Sharing lived experience through our newsletter will increase empathy and shine light on personal stories of youth that have been impacted by current policies.  The opportunities to build better together are exponential. 

Because we are a hybrid PBC and 501(c)3 nonprofit, we operate The Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus through our 501(c)3 nonprofit.  Our nonprofit accepts donations and grants, but also has current revenue predictions of over 1M this year given The ChangeMakers Festival (also through our 501c3 nonprofit) this Fall.  From a long term sustainability model, we expect The ChangeMakers Festival to be an annual fundraising event that will generate a profit to support all of our outreach endeavors including the Young Innovators Bipartisan Caucus.  However, we would very much appreciate financial consideration now as we are an early stage concept built into a growth stage product.  Money designated for PR and marketing would be exceptionally catalytic in getting this innovation to the next level sooner verses later.   

We also have 4 revenue models to support our public benefit corporation and have taken 1M in investment capital to date. We expect to be able to fully fund our nonprofit outreach efforts within 5 years making Promly a true social enterprise. 

Please see our biannual report for details on our funding sources and the traction we have had so far:

https://docsend.com/view/2jcrp...

Investors in Promly, PBC include:

Walt Greenburg (MIT MBA Graduate), Bachmanity Capital, Purpurlite Capital, Christy Johnson (J&J family) & Adam Antonadias (Cetera Financial CEO).  Friends & Family round included Cooper Schiefflin, Brian Dovey (Dovey Ventures) & Brad Watson.   

Grants and Sponsorships include:

Summit Area Foundation, Swift River Foundation, Phillip Ellis Foundation, Morris County Parks & Rec, Cigna, Cetera, NYU Langone, & NJ DOH. 

Recent CTIA Catalyst finalist and Telosity Ventures finalist. Winners are TBD.