Ashoka’s Changemakers and the Vulnerable Populations Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched a global competition to explore innovations that allow individuals, families, communities, and society to move past narrow perceptions of mental health and expand our understanding and collective involvement in finding solutions.

The Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing collaborative competition is building a platform that will give everyone the freedom to shatter outdated stigmas and stereotypes. This competition aims to push us closer to systems-changing innovations within the field of mental health, sparking compelling conversation, and extracting targeted solutions that radically take existing interventions to new heights.

"Mental health care in the United States and elsewhere is still highly stigmatized, preventing so many people from getting the help they need," says Jane Lowe, team director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Vulnerable Populations Portfolio. "Through the Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing competition, we hope to engage and build a community of innovators with new ideas and approaches that change people's attitudes about mental health care, making it acceptable and accessible, especially to the most vulnerable among us."

Innovators and enthusiasts from around the world are invited to join the Changemakers community to nominate groundbreaking solutions, submit great ideas, vote for the top finalists and interact with a network of committed supporters. Three winners will each receive $5,000 (U.S. dollars), media exposure and will be prominently featured on Changemakers.com as a preeminent solution endorsed by the world’s most vigorously engaged online community of social change.

"Mental health has to move beyond standard treatment," says Charlie Brown, Changemakers’ executive director." Through this competition, Changemakers is eager to redefine mental health and discover systemic ways to prevent mental illness and guarantee human rights. As we expand our scope and influence, we welcome the opportunity to find answers to the most rigorous questions and encourage a healthy exchange of ideas and inspiration."   

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime.

Ashoka’s Changemakers
Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka, an organization with over three decades of finding, funding, and expanding the work of social entrepreneurs across the globe. The Changemakers online community builds on this history and expands the Ashoka vision by creating an “Everyone a Changemaker” world through networking, online competitions, and relationship-building. Changemakers creates opportunities for those who want to be at the center of social change by offering competitions that are supported by philanthropic organizations. The competitions and the community connect those who are passionate about change and make ideas come to life.