Rare Beauty’s Rare Impact Fund Announces $1.2 Million in Grants to Expand Mental Health Resources and Services in Educational Settings

August 16, 2021

LOS ANGELES, August 16, 2021 — It’s been one year since the launch of the Rare Impact Fund, the non-profit affiliate of Rare Beauty, the mission-driven beauty brand founded by Selena Gomez. Today, the Rare Impact Fund announced a commitment to distribute $1.2 million dollars in grants to a cohort of eight organizations that work to expand mental health services in educational settings.

“Helping young people gain access to mental health resources is exactly why we created the Rare Impact Fund – it’s something I wish I had access to when I was growing up,” said Rare Beauty founder and creator Selena Gomez. “I couldn’t be more grateful that we can support these incredible organizations.” 

This round of grantmaking focuses on social and emotional education, building communities of support for students, early interventions, and suicide prevention and crisis support.

Recipients include:

• McLean Hospital, which will develop a webinar series focused on youth mental health and wellness for audiences in the U.S. and beyond, tackling topics that teens and young adults are interested in and concerned about while also hosting sessions to help guide parents, educators, and coaches about best practices if they notice a young person might be struggling.
• Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services which will use the funding to support development and dissemination of lifesaving, comprehensive Youth Suicide Awareness and Prevention Training for high school students, teachers, and counselors. Student trainings will uniquely feature teens sharing their own struggles with toxic stress and mental health, offering crisis prevention guidance and hope to their peers.
• JED Campus by The Jed Foundation (JED) which will use funds to help scale their JED Campus program and add 50-60 schools to reach more than 400 colleges and universities, and more than 5,000,000 students in the next 12 months. JED is the leading national non-profit working to protect emotional health and prevent suicide for teens and young adults.
• FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress), a project housed at UCLA, will use these funds to implement FOCUS Resilience Skills. The project will support staff in 15 Los Angeles County districts to implement the Resilience Skills program and disseminate an enhanced FOCUS Resilience Check-In app, FOCUS Resilience on the Go, for students, parents/caregivers, and school staff for self-monitoring of well-being, reinforcement of resilience skills, and linkage to community resources.
• The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI) will use the Rare Impact Fund’s support to incorporate ideas from researchers and educators working at the intersection of emotional intelligence and identity, race, ethnicity, and learning differences to improve the tools and strategies employed in YCEI’s school-based RULER approach to social and emotional learning. The goal is to promote the health and wellbeing of teachers, staff, students, and families representing diverse backgrounds and all abilities. Plans include undertaking a thorough review of existing RULER content, creating a council of educator advisors, and subsidizing training and supports for under resourced schools.
• The Ever Forward Club, started as a mentoring program for young men of color, will use the funding to support mentoring and youth development program that aims to address the underlying causes of dropouts, youth violence, and the growing achievement gap of inner-city youth in a preventive manner. Ever Forward has launched the Peer Mentor Club to support students of all genders to create communities of students who are setting and achieving their goals inside and outside the classroom.
• Transformative Educational Leadership (TEL) will use funding to support a racially and culturally diverse community for educational leaders who want to create systemic transformation based on a deep foundation of inner development. The TEL Framework is rooted in the transformational potential of leadership that integrates the cutting-edge application of Equity, SEL, and Mindfulness—all in service of creating a more compassionate and interdependent world.
• Peer Health Exchange Peer Health Exchange is a national non-profit organization working to advance health equity and improve outcomes for young people. Peer Health Exchange creates educational opportunities for peers to share the tools and resources young people need to make healthy decisions. In May, the organization launched selfsea, a web app co-designed with young people to boost access to inclusive health resources and information for youth everywhere.

“These grants signify our commitment to working with organizations that offer mental health educational trainings and services that reach young people,” said Elyse Cohen, VP of Social Impact & Inclusion at Rare Beauty. “As we enter this next school year, we are eager to support these incredible organizations and fill the vital gaps in funding they need.”

In addition to the 1% of all Rare Beauty sales that go to the Rare Impact Fund, funding was raised in partnership with corporate partners, philanthropists, and the Rare Beauty community.

ABOUT RARE IMPACT

Rare Impact is Rare Beauty’s commitment to making a difference in the world.

With a focus on mental health and self-acceptance, Rare Impact aims to support the mental health of their community, employees, and partners around the world. By celebrating everyone’s uniqueness and making people feel more connected, Rare Beauty aims to reduce the stigma associated with mental health, address the epidemic of chronic loneliness, and give people access to the resources they need to support their mental health. 

ABOUT THE RARE IMPACT FUND

The Rare Impact Fund was launched as part of Rare Beauty’s focus on addressing mental health.

One percent of all Rare Beauty sales are donated to the Rare Impact Fund and Rare Beauty raises additional funds with philanthropic foundations, individuals, corporate partners, and the Rare Beauty community. The Rare Impact Fund supports organizations that expand access to mental health services in schools and educational settings. The Rare Impact Fund is a fiscally sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Potential Rare Impact Fund donor partners can contact us at impact@rarebeauty.com.