What if all it took to change a city was belief—in a person, their purpose, and their plan? That’s the founding premise of The David Prize, a $200,000 no-strings-attached award granted annually to five New Yorkers with bold visions for a better city. Now in its fifth year, the Prize continues to prove that real transformation starts with the individual.

This fall, nonprofit creative collective Been There is teaming up with Real Ale Brewing Company to launch a limited-edition beer whose profits will support efforts to end homelessness. For Been There co-founder and co-executive director Lenny Barszap, it’s more than a creative collaboration—it’s a bold step toward a bigger vision: building the equivalent of Product (RED) for homelessness.

We live in a world built on carbon. But for too long, that carbon has come from the wrong places—dug up from beneath the Earth in the form of oil, gas, and coal. What if, instead, we could make everything we need from the carbon already in the air?

What if the key to ending homelessness wasn’t just a roof—but a sofa, a fridge, a toothbrush?

 That’s the insight behind A Sense of Home, the nonprofit founded by Georgie Smith and led by Ken Grouf, which has created over 1,200 fully furnished homes for former foster youth and 225 more for wildfire survivors. Their model shows how dignity, stability, and belonging can begin with the basics—and grow into something life-changing.

Imagine being told the only way to save the planet is to find the impossible: technologies bold enough to cut a billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

That’s the challenge Nelson Switzer has set for himself. As Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Climate Innovation Capital (ClimateIC), he leads a venture fund dedicated to backing entrepreneurs with the potential to radically cut emissions and reshape industries.

Since 2006, GO Campaign has grown from helping 20 children in Tanzania to more than 420,000 in 40 countries, granting over $14.4 million with an average of just $35 needed to change a child’s life.

In 2024, the Bencheghib siblings launched Sungai Design — a for-profit social enterprise that transforms hard-to-recycle plastic into beautifully designed products. Their mission is simple but ambitious: reduce river pollution by building a circular system where trash is recovered, cleaned, reprocessed, and remade into something useful and desirable.

Most bottled teas are loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners, wrapped in glossy promises that don’t always hold up to scrutiny. Just Ice Tea is changing that: not with hype, but with heart.

What if you had a brilliant idea to change the world—but no idea how to turn it into a legitimate nonprofit? What if the biggest hurdle wasn’t inspiration, but infrastructure?

For the last decade, executive director Craig Cichy and the team at Social Impact Fund have been quietly helping changemakers solve that problem.

In the rolling hills of North Wales, a new kind of movement is taking shape—one built not with protest signs or policy papers, but with dirt bikes, skate ramps, and a radical commitment to joy. It’s called Camp VC, and it’s proving that when women and non-binary people are given space to create their own worlds, the results can be both thrilling and transformational.

What happens when cinematic storytelling meets philanthropy — and strips away every trick that makes traditional filmmaking sensational? For the creative team at Beast Philanthropy, the answer is simple yet profound: you can tell the truth and still move millions.

There is a quiet revolution underway in how we see neurodiversity — not as a limitation, but as a source of strength, creativity, and resilience. At the heart of this movement is The Neurodiversity Alliance, an organization with a bold ambition: to reshape educational experiences for neurodivergent students and create pathways for their success.

What if the solution to gender-based violence isn’t just safety—but wealth?

That’s the radical—and necessary—premise behind FreeFrom, the national organization founded by Sonya Passi. And through its social enterprise Gifted, FreeFrom is flipping the script: from survivors as recipients of charity to creators of value, owners of businesses, and builders of generational wealth.

FreeFrom isn’t about short-term band-aids. It’s about systemic change—economic, cultural, and structural. And at the heart of its model is a bold question: What if financial security was the long-term focus of survivor support?

What if foundations acted like film studios, and brands became co-creators of culture? That’s the bold vision behind Impact Lounge, a traveling creative hub founded by Heather Mason. By bringing filmmakers, nonprofits, and corporations together around powerful, purpose-driven stories, the Lounge is proving that narrative—not guilt or shame—is the true engine of social change.

It started with a single blue box—packed by hand, left on a library shelf, and filled with something rare: real, human hope. Created by Ali Borowsky as part of her own healing journey, the first Find Your Anchor box has grown into a global movement—over 100,000 boxes shared in 40+ countries, offering real, human support to people in crisis. From classrooms to stadiums, one woman’s small act of care is quietly saving lives.

What if the points you scored in a game didn’t just stay on-screen—but made the world a little better?

That’s the radical vision behind World Reborn, the flagship title from Wicked Saints Studios, a Black- and female-led gaming startup reimagining what it means to “level up.” Co-founded by Emmy Award-winning storyteller and former peacebuilder Jessica Murrey, the company sits at the intersection of narrative design, behavioral science, and social impact—with the bold idea that games can make you stronger in real life.