Ripple co-founder and CEO Chris Larsen
Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen has launched Boys & Men Co-Lab, a collaborative philanthropy fund aiming to mobilize $30 million in support of 18 organizations working to help boys and young men by investing in community, fatherhood, and education and skill building for boys and men across the United States. The funding will span over three years. Beside Chris Larsen, Co-Lab’s founding donors include Lyna Lam; The David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Mo and John Pritzker, co-trustees of the Mojo Philanthropic Fund; Richard V. Reeves, founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men; Jessica Sieja and Andrew Sieja, co-founders of Alta Futures; Dennis Troper, president of Troper Wojcicki Philanthropies; and Maggie and Teddy Vlock, of the Vlock Family Foundation, alongside ICONIQ partner Matt Jacobson and Salima Jacobson. As stated above, the Boys & Men Co-Lab’s initial portfolio will support 18 organizations and spans the following three pillars
- Community The Co-Lab’s community partners are strengthening friendships through shared activities and gathering spaces and creating new opportunities for boys and men to build purpose through civic engagement. Grantees: Fishing the Good Fight, National Compadres Network, Young Man With a Plan, Walking Talking Men, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire, and Civic Valor (The Brickyard). Impact: In a four-year, randomized controlled trial, youth mentored through Big Brothers Big Sisters were 30% less likely to be involved in the juvenile justice system and 42% less likely to use illicit substances. At Young Man With a Plan, a Boston mentoring program led by Executive Director Dr. Jaykyri Simpson, that same sense of belonging takes shape in its 6,720-square-foot afterschool “home” where members share study spaces, a fitness area, a kitchen, and a standing community of mentors and peers. Every young man builds an individualized success plan, and seniors consistently graduate from high school at a rate of 100%.
- Fatherhood The Co-Lab’s fatherhood partners are strengthening fatherhood education and peer support and working to remove structural barriers to engaged fatherhood. Grantees: Fathers’ UpLift, Dad Guild, National Parents Organization, Center for Urban Families, Fathers Incorporated, and Fathers, Families & Healthy Communities. Impact: Dad Guild, a grassroots father network founded in Vermont, has grown from a single group of new dads into a statewide movement. In its most recent survey, 67% of fathers who attended three or more events said they’d made new friendships through the program, and participants named an average of more than five people they could turn to for support. In Chicago, Fathers Families & Healthy Communities — led by Dr. Clinton Boyd Jr. — is building on more than a decade of trusted work with Black fathers through Fathers United, a 25-session peer cohort. In its first year, the program helped roughly 80 fathers strengthen their relationships with their children. Fathers Incorporated is working to remove the legal and administrative barriers that can keep noncustodial fathers from staying involved in their children’s lives. That work has helped move legitimation reform for unmarried fathers into active legislative consideration in Georgia.
- Education and Skills The Co-Lab’s education and skills partners are improving belonging and supportive relationships in schools and making educational environments more responsive to how boys learn and succeed. Grantees: 100 Black Men of America, Boys to Men Mentoring Network (San Diego and Virginia), Journeymen, Eagle Academy Foundation, Boys Who Write, and Call Me MISTER. Impact: In North Carolina, Journeymen brings boys from different backgrounds together in peer-led mentoring circles and rites-of-passage weekends. In a recent survey, 100% of participants reported feeling more hopeful about the future, and more than 80% said they’d improved their ability to set goals and express their emotions. Boys to Men Mentoring Network, which pioneered the mentoring-circle model in San Diego and has since expanded into Virginia, is now building the shared training infrastructure to bring that model to communities nationwide. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.