The cost of doing nothing was too high: Why we’re launching the Inner Foundation today
I am incredibly excited to announce today my biggest bet so far on the future generations: the launch of The Inner Foundation. With Pär-Jorgen, it’s something that has been cooking for a while as recent micro and macro crises have further isolated people, especially emerging adults. In 2020, $9.5 trillion was spent on health globally but only 1% was used on addressing mental health. This is undeniable proof that mental health challenges have been overlooked by the global health system and provides a real opportunity for change makers, entrepreneurs and investors who share this common observation to address this crisis.
When it comes to mental health, there’s still far too little commitment from the for-profit and non-profit sector in relation to the scale of the problem. The implementation gap is obvious between society’s desire to fix this problem and their corresponding actions. Given our backgrounds, we are aware of the strong impact that entrepreneurs can have in changing society and our belief systems for the better. The foundation aims to partner with the best in class in this space and be a trusted resource of capital, network and competence.
Our initial commitment is €100m over the next 20 years as we are taking a long term perspective on achieving significant impact. We are building a robust organisation specifically tackling mental health, currently with 6 people on the team who hashit the ground running as proven by our first for-profit and non-profit investments.
If the “why mental health” is obvious for many, we will also focus our time on emerging adults, those between 18 and 25 years old — no longer children but on the cusp of adulthood. These young adults are the future of our society and our economy yet there is extremely limited assistance currently available that addresses their mental health needs.
I am grateful to run this organisation with the help of my Partner Caroline, Precious and Ye. We share similar values and are well aware of the crises at hand. We will steer the foundation towards our common goals together with other organisations and individuals who feel as strongly as we do in addressing mental health, thus making a difference in the lives and well-being of emerging adults.
We cannot do this alone. We urge others to join us on this journey of turning ideas into actions. We’ve structured our foundation so as to be able to allocate capital where it matters the most, but more capital will be needed to support these change makers and we want others to join us.
The good news is that there are indeed solutions ready to scale, driven by innovative social entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and changemakers holding the potential to contribute to real and sustainable change. Join us to make change happen for the better. You can find our first investments on our new website here.
You can find out more about The Inner Foundation on Bloomberg and Business Insider
About The Inner Foundation
The Inner Foundation was created as a significant force for good – equal parts impact investor, grant giver, and thought leader. We are witnessing a large gap between academic insight, best practice, and street-level action in the field of mental health and DEI and found it impossible to sit by and watch the problem getting increasingly worse. We instead made it our job to turn insight into action, step by step, and then to accelerate healing of the world to the next level: a world of thriving.
We consider ourselves part empowerers, part activists. We recognize the complexity and still, we aim for solutions that are simple, doable, and powerful. We set out to build an ecosystem of positive change agents with people and organizations that share our philosophy and theory of change. There are thousands of innovative solutions out there that carry the potential for counteracting the problems of loneliness, loss of direction, exclusion, and lack of diversity. We will not rest until these debilitating issues are addressed for real.
Annika Sten Pärson has held C-level top management positions in large telecoms, media, retail and consumer goods companies and has also served on private and public company boards. In 2019, Annika co-founded the Stockholm-based non-profit clinic 1825 - Therapy Centre for Young Adults, serving vulnerable young adults. She currently serves on several boards, including Strong Minds, addressing depression in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Childhood Foundation, and Ashoka Nordics, the world's leading organization for social entrepreneurship and changemaking.
Pär-Jörgen Pärson, is a prolific early-stage venture capital investor for 25 years, having invested and served as board member in game changing companies such as Spotify, iZettle, Spring Health, Avito, Homa Games and many others in his capacity as General Partner at global Venture Capital firm Northzone. Pär-Jörgen serves as a non-executive board member of the Inner Foundation.
For press and other inquiries
www.theinnerfoundation.org
Press: hi@theinnnerfoundation.org
Phone: Chief of Staff, Precious Jocson +46 73 714 94 63
Phone: Partner, Caroline Stiernstedt Sahlborn +46 70 249 77 81