Born This Way Foundation

Programs: Launched the hack harassment campaign (january 2016) in partnership with vox and intel. The goal of this campaign was to reduce the instances and severity of online harassment by working with users and platforms to build accountability and build a kinder and braver internet. In order to achieve this, hack harassment will elevate the conversation around online harassment by raising awareness of the problem, its prevalence, its real life impact, and the responsibility we all share to speak out when we see harassment taking place. Additionally, our work will foster collaboration among organizations, social influencers and individuals around this common cause in order to maximize the reach and impact of our collective resources and finally, our work will develop and cultivate real solutions both technological and educational that will directly contribute to the reduction of online harassment. In may, we launched the third iteration of our born brave experiences survey and later that summer, launched the first spanish language version of our mental wellness survey. The born brave experiences research is a series of studies focused on improving our understanding of the factors that influence youth engagement, mental health and emotional wellbeing. Grounded in psychological research, the studies are designed to identify the conditions that empower young people to live their best lives and to improve the services and resources available to them online and offline. In august, we launched channel kindness. The work of channel kindness is to identify, train and equip a corps of fifty youth reporters in communities across the country to train their eyes and ears to find, recognize and report the acts of kindness that fill our daily lives. The goal of the program is simple; to channel kindness. The stories of kindness and compassion will be told on a new platform and across the foundation's social channels. Our hope is that the narrative of an engaged, empowerment and collaborative generation will outweigh the often divisive the depressive news stories that floor our minds every day. In partnership with nbc universal, we launched the interactive kindness experience at 30 rockefeller center. The kindness experience offered in busy, holiday filled new york city various opportunities to perform an act of kindness, from writing a letter to a veteran, decorating a lunch bag for kids food basket and many more.