Young people everywhere have bold, inspiring dreams for their lives and futures. Join us in offering them the coaching, support, and community they need – online and in-person – to unlock their unique potential and bring those dreams to life.
Over the past decade, our Dream Directors – inspiring, world-class coaches and facilitators – have supported thousands of students in high schools across the United States in discovering their spark and pursuing their purpose. Through personal coaching, small-group sessions, and high-energy assemblies, Dream Directors have helped young people navigate some of their biggest challenges: staying motivated in school; dealing with loneliness, anxiety, and stress; and pursuing the goals that matter most to them. All our programming is built on our Future Ready methodology, developed through a decade of research and real-world experience.
During the pandemic, Dream Directors continued to serve schools nationwide – from California to Connecticut, Kansas City to Hawaii – by offering customized virtual programming. Now, as we bring Future Coach to life, we are once again exploring ways to support schools with in-person programming.
The events of 2020 forced us to explore new ways to serve the most pressing needs of young people, especially amid the growing youth mental health crisis. Enter Future Coach, a completely digital experience, designed to give young people the coaching and support they need to navigate life and pursue their dreams – all accessible on their phones. Future Coach will offer:
On-demand access to a community of Future Coaches, trained to help young people navigate life and pursue the goals that matter to them
A library of short-form video content that provides exposure to the hundreds of pathways and possibilities in the world
Access to tools, resources, experts, and real-world opportunities to help bring ideas and dreams to life
After completing several low-cost pilots and a design phase in partnership with our Youth Leader Advisory Board, we are preparing to launch the Future Coach platform later this year.
It’s going to take a village to support our nation’s young people in navigating this challenging time. Whether you’re a young person; a potential partner; or a dedicated parent, educator, or community member, we would love for you to join us in answering the call. Here’s how:
When a passionate team came together to start The Future Project in 2011, it was in response to a clear need: young people everywhere were growing up without the chance to pursue their purpose. The consequences are significant: lack of motivation and engagement in school; loss of confidence, self-esteem, and agency; even declining mental health, healthy relationships, and general life satisfaction. And, of course, this trend can continue into adulthood: many Americans feel like they are sleepwalking through life – disempowered and lacking a sense of purpose.
So we developed a new role in schools and society – one dedicated entirely to coaching young people to realize their infinite potential: the Dream Director. And we began to imagine a world in which every young person had access to a Dream Director, who could support them in navigating life and pursuing their dreams.
Our model in the first phase was simple: we recruited, trained, and placed Dream Directors full-time in partner high schools across the country. Dream Directors coached and trained students to build purpose-driven Future Projects that impacted their schools and communities, while creating a culture of support, inspiration, and empowerment in the building.
Since 2011, we’ve partnered with 60+ schools across eight states and served more than 35,000 students. And we’ve seen powerful growth in the young people we worked with:
94%+ of our students grew in mindsets and skills correlated with thriving in life – especially purpose, leadership, and connection
90% of schools reported increased attendance and a majority reported improved school culture
Our students graduated at a rate of 94.5%
Years later, 91% of our alumni reported having a sense of purpose and 78% reported living a purposeful life
Thanks to the support of generous funders, we have been able to devote significant resources to research and evaluation from the start. We’ve focused this work on how to support a young person with developing the mindsets and skills needed to live their life in pursuit of purpose. We call the methodology we developed Future Readiness, and it continues to serve as the foundation of all of our work.
Like most growing organizations, we fail – and learn from our failures – every day. This was true throughout our first phase.
The area where we experienced the most fundamental challenge was our economic model. Although the full-time Dream Director program caused incredible results in young people and was beloved by school partners, the cost of operating the program year over year – which included both full-time personnel and programming expenses – proved untenable for local funders and too costly for most schools. As a result, much of the cost of our local programs was subsidized by general operating funds, and, in time, we grew over-reliant on a small number of major national philanthropists. Eventually, we were forced to accept that the business model was unsustainable and that we had to rethink it.
This was a painful process to go through for everyone involved, and it took time to do so. But our commitment to the mission never wavered and, in reconnecting with the needs of young people, we have discovered new, more sustainable ways to serve them.
In response to the global challenges of the past several years – and the spikes in loneliness, anxiety, loss of motivation they created – we are working to package our methodology into more accessible offerings, starting with Future Coach. We hope that, in the wake of the growing mental health crisis and the need for non-clinical support in navigating life and making decisions about the future, Future Coach can provide young people with tangible support through a trained community of coaches, inspiring content that exposes them to the world, and a values-aligned community to lean on as they navigate life at this challenging time and beyond.
For now, we are extremely excited about what’s next – and humbled by the opportunity to serve young people at a critical moment of transition for their generation and society as a whole. We hope you’ll join us as we do.
