Organizations We Love
They Get Teens Off The Sofa And Into the World
1. School of Rock
Leader: Rob Price, CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 35,000 U.S. teens
Performance-based music schools. Teens join bands, rehearse weekly, and play live shows in 400+ U.S. locations.
2. ATA Martial Arts
Leader: Sr. Master Taekwon Lee, CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 30–40 k U.S. teens
Taekwondo and leadership training with a dedicated teen/adult track; evening & weekend classes nationwide.
3. USA Weightlifting
Leader: Matt Sicchio, CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 5–7 k teens
Governing body for Olympic-style weightlifting; hundreds of clubs offer teen barbell programs and competitions.
4. Central Rock Gym
Leader: Ed Hardy, Co-Founder & CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 4–6 k teens
Indoor climbing gyms in the Northeast; after-school climbing teams that track the USA Climbing season.
5. First Tee
Leader: Greg McLaughlin, CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 25–35 k teens
Golf-based life-skills program; 150 U.S. chapters with teen leadership and tournament pathways.
6. BookUp (National Book Foundation)
Leader: Ruth Dickey, Executive Director (NBF)
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 500 teens
After-school & weekend reading clubs connecting teens with authors; free books and discussions.
7. Once Upon a Book Club – YA Box
Leader: Michelle Wolett, Founder & CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 2–3 k U.S. teen subscribers
Monthly YA subscription boxes pairing novels with themed gifts and an online reader community
8. Outward Bound USA (Intercept & Classic High School)
Leader: Josh Brankman, Executive Director
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 15–20 k U.S. teens
Wilderness expeditions (backpacking, canoeing, climbing) for teens 14–18 — leadership, challenge, and grit.
9. Venturing (Boy Scouts of America)
Leader: Roger C. Mosby, President & CEO of BSA
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 40–50 k U.S. teens
Adventure & leadership crews for older youth — backpacking, sailing, service — open to newcomers, not only lifelong scouts.
10. DoSomething.org
Leader: DeNora Getachew, CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 1–1.5 M U.S. teen members
Digital-first nonprofit mobilizing teens for volunteer and social-impact campaigns — low-barrier 'get-out-and-act' projects.
11. Young Chefs Academy
Leader: Julie Burleson, Founder & CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 5–7 k U.S. teens
Year-round cooking schools offering weekly classes and weekend workshops for ages 13–17; hands-on culinary skills.
12. Michaels Arts & Crafts – Maker Classes
Leader: Ashley Buchanan, CEO
Estimated U.S. Teens: ≈ 15–20 k U.S. teens
Nationwide in-store creative sessions after school and on weekends (painting, jewelry, sewing, décor).
13. Harvard's Human Flourishing Program
Leader: Tyler VanderWeele, Director
Part of Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science; Tyler and team study and promote human flourishing empirically across all ages. "The smartest person at Harvard," according to my friend Marty. They've got a school component too.
CTF Connection: We share their empirical lens on flourishing.
14. The Rithm Project
Leader: Michelle Culver, Founder
Helps families create intentional tech boundaries and rhythms to reduce AI-powered screentime impact and rebuild human connection in the age of AI.
15. Screen Strong
Leader: Melanie Hempe, Founder
Equips parents with strategies and community support to delay smartphones and manage screen habits.
16. Young Futures
Leader: Katya Hancock, Chief Executive
Provides a social compass for teens and families navigating the digital wilderness; funding and supporting innovative solutions for youth wellbeing in a tech-driven world.
17. Family Engagement Lab
Leader: Jon Mooney, Co-Founder
Research and tools to help families strengthen connection and reduce friction around digital life.
CTF Connection (for 14-17): We love their urgency about teen screentime. While these organizations help parents try to suppress or improve screen usage, CTF's path generates positive "in-person" substitutes for screentime — same goal, different mechanism. We're allies - and want to consume (and help create!) empirical evidence about both these approaches.
18. The Aspen Institute – Center for Rising Generations
Leader: Kaya Henderson, Executive Vice President & Executive Director
Empowers the next generation through civil dialogue, civic engagement, and leadership development; includes the Education & Society Program focused on whole-child development.
CTF Connection: We share their belief that thriving goes beyond academics. They advocate at the policy level; we work family-by-family to build flourishing weeks.
19. Hopelab
Leader: Astrid Hernandez, Chief Innovation Officer
Designs tech-based interventions for teens in acute mental health crisis — evidence-backed, youth centered.
CTF Connection: We love that they serve Acute Teens in crisis. CTF targets the much larger group of Languishing Teens — not in crisis, but far from living full lives.
20. Centre for Education and Youth (London) – Sadly Defunct
Leader: Formerly led by Jonathan Simons
UK-based think tank championing better education and youth outcomes; closed in recent years after impactful run.
CTF Connection: We mourn the loss of allies. Their evidence-driven approach to youth thriving mirrored ours — we carry the torch in the U.S.
21. Purpose Commons
Leader: Dr. Jana Haritatos & Dr. Anthony Burrow, Co-Founders
Incubated at Hopelab; bridges the gap between the science of purpose and practical application to ensure young people have support to cultivate their sense of purpose.
CTF Connection: Fascinating and ambitious. They champion Purpose-Driven Time — a powerful subset of flourishing activities. We're more agnostic: any reasonable in-person time counts towards flourishing (rock climbing, cashier job at Chipotle, driveway basketball with friends, pleasure
reading novels, walking the dog, baking).
22. GreenLight Fund
Ali Knight, CEO
Greenlight isn’t specific to teens. They try to help communities more broadly.
But CTF loves how Greenlight promote evidence-based solutions, like Per Scholas, which is proven tuition-free computer job training, often for . Evidence, evidence, evidence. (We may quibble about some of their evidence, but so much of the Help Kids sector simply values good intention even if the evidence shows null outcomes - Greenlight is different, they’re empirical).