2025 Annual Report
Wellbeing as the Foundation for Sustainable Impact.
What an extraordinary year of collective growth and groundbreaking impact! 2025 was a year defined by deeper connection, locally-rooted growth, and the tangible realization of the sector we are building together. Thanks to the dedication and innovation of our entire team and our incredible partners, we successfully hosted our largest Global Hearth Summit yet, expanded our presence across six continents, and cultivated new movements centered on wellbeing — from educators and social entrepreneurs to environmental changemakers.
At the same time, 2025 was also a year of profound challenge for many across the social change sector, marked by growing uncertainty and significant funding cuts to international cooperation and civil society efforts. These realities only reinforced the importance of our mission: supporting the wellbeing, resilience, and long-term stewardship of the people sustaining change around the world. The milestones below reflect the foundation we have collectively built — and a glimpse of the future we continue to shape together in 2026.
For those who are new to our work: we are a global non-profit dedicated to catalyzing a culture of wellbeing for all changemakers. We believe that the inner lives of those working for social and environmental change matter — not as a luxury, but as the very foundation of sustainable, meaningful impact. Through research, convenings, and a growing global community, we walk alongside changemakers in tending to their wellbeing as an essential part of their work.
2025
Annual Report · The Wellbeing Project
2025 At A Glance
A year measured in gatherings, geographies, and growing networks.
1,000
Changemakers present at the Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana
JUNE 2025 · SLOVENIA
2,600
Participants across 9 Regional Hearth Summits
9 REGIONS · 2025
2,700
Organizations participating in our networks
GLOBAL NETWORKS
45
Foundations learning to shift practice toward changemaker wellbeing
FUNDER TRACK
24+
Countries participating at the Ecological Belonging Network
EB NETWORK
01
Convening — June 2025
Global Hearth Summit, Ljubljana
There is something that happens when 1,000 people who have been carrying urgent work — often in isolation — finally find themselves in the same room. Ljubljana was that room, in June 2025.
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Hosted the largest-ever GHS
Convening 1,000 changemakers from over 80 countries in Ljubljana.
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Pioneered the Family Circles model
An innovative peer-to-peer model ensuring intimate, personal connection and grounded learning within the large-scale Summit.
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Integrated Art
As a living thread throughout the gathering to help host complexity, foster collective imagination, and collaboration.
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Our most diverse Summit ever
Growing in depth, in geography, and in the quality of connection and networks
Mai-Nadine Nguyen greets the audience on the plenary stage at the Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Our community of 1,000 changemakers gathers at the Global Hearth Summit.
02
Convening — Nine Regions
Regional Hearth Summits
Wellbeing is not a Western concept, and it is not a luxury for those with time to spare. In 2025, 2,600 changemakers across eight countries proved this — gathering close to home, in their own languages and realities, to tend to themselves and each other.
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Significantly expanded regional reach
Gathering 2,600 changemakers across 9 regional summits.
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Sparked meaningful connections across sectors
Bringing together grassroots activists, artists, educators and researchers, philanthropists and impact investors, social entrepreneurs, and systems thinkers in shared spaces of trust and exchange.
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Reinforced wellbeing as an act of leadership
Equipping changemakers with practices and strategies to build and nurture enduring cultures of care.
Since their launch in 2023, 24 Regional Hearth Summits have been hosted in 16 countries — expanding our regional footprint on every continent.
This is the most transformative summit I’ve attended — not academic, not PowerPoint-heavy, but real people sharing real life issues that are very, very related to my life.
– MANEI NAANYU · KENYA
Locally rooted arts take center stage at Hearth Summit Bangalore.
Deep conversations encourage learning and dreaming at Hearth Summit Austria.
The bonds grow deeper in the presence of nature at Hearth Summit Nairobi.
03
Funder Engagement
Philanthropy & Wellbeing
We believe philanthropy has an essential role to play in normalizing and funding wellbeing in changemaking. In 2025, our work accompanying funders on this journey reached new heights, convening 45 foundations at our Global Hearth Summit to explore these questions together.
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Launched the Global Hearth Summit Philanthropy Track
Hosting 45 foundations throughout the Summit for peer learning and sensemaking.
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Expanded access to wellbeing through Regional Hearth Summits
Enabling 10 foundations to support over 100 changemakers’ participation.
Join our Funders + Wellbeing Learning Group.
Peer support for those in philanthropy seeking to embed wellbeing into their grantmaking practices.
We nourish relationships and partnerships with care and commitment.
Rohini Nilekani speaks with Christiane Sultani and Laurence Lien at the Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana.
04
Network – 24+ Countries
Ecological Belonging
The crisis of disconnection runs deep — from ourselves, from each other, and from the living world we are working to protect. Ecological Belonging is our response: a practice of remembering that human and planetary wellbeing are not separate.
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Launched the global Ecological Belonging Ecosystem Network (EBN)
Now uniting 53 members from 24 countries.
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Successfully wove the EB experience into the Global Hearth Summit
By leading the design of the unique Hearth Feast, a dedicated space for reconnecting with self, others, and nature.
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Scaled the practice of Ecological Belonging with over 20 Hearth Dinners
Hosted and the launch of the Ecological Belonging Member Spotlight series.
Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise. It is relationship that will endure and relationship that will sustain the restored land.
Changemakers enjoy a moment of reflection and connection at the Hearth Feasts in Ljubljana.
The Global Hearth Summit commissioned art piece, “Tent” by Chiara Camoni, invites changemakers to discover Ljubljana’s natural beauty.
05
Networks & Communities
Networks & Communities of Practice
Burnout does not strike individuals in isolation — it moves through sectors, institutions, and generations. The networks we steward exist to interrupt that pattern: to create the peer connections and shared practices that make wellbeing sustainable, not just occasional.
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Drove significant global expansion for the Wellbeing in Higher Education Network
Now including 98 institutions and 264 participants across 31 countries.
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Launched the RestorEDucation network
To support 300+ educators facing burnout.
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Expanded our Invisible Factor research with the Inter-American Development Bank
Launched report on entrepreneur wellbeing in Chile.
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Renewed the Healing Trauma Program partnership
To provide 150 fully sponsored spots for Global South changemakers.
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Built a partnership with Spirit Rock Meditation Center
To integrate resilience and mindfulness practices for Climate and Nature Leaders.
The Wellbeing in Higher Education Network has grown from 20 founding institutions in 2022 to 98 in 2025 — a fivefold increase in three years, across 31 countries.
Peer-to-peer sharing circles foster community, connection, and creativity within our networks.
The Wellbeing in Higher Education Network reunites at Hearth Summit Higher Ed in Ljubljana.
06
Local Ecosystems
Regional Ecosystems
The most durable change is locally rooted. We do not build wellbeing ecosystems in Africa or Asia — we walk alongside the leaders who do, supporting their vision with resources, connections, and the conviction that their work matters.
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Launched the Pan-African Wellbeing Movement (PAWM)
Rooted in African values, culture, and shared wisdom.
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Advanced the strategy for the Wellbeing Ecosystem Bangladesh (WEB)
Defining priority wellbeing agendas across four key domains: education, ecology, workplace, and health (with an emphasis on mental health).
Wellbeing is the spark. It is what allows us to imagine a better world — from a place of imagination, capacity to aspire, and intuition — and then find others on the same journey.
Hearth Summit Nairobi ignites a new chapter for the Pan-African Wellbeing Movement.
The Wellbeing Ecosystem Bangladesh dives deeper into the world of changemakers’ mental health at Hearth Summit Bangladesh.
07
Organizational Practice
Organizational Exploratory Program (OEP)
Individuals cannot sustain their wellbeing inside organizations that don’t. In 2025, we began working alongside eight organizations to do the harder, slower work of cultural change — creating a Community of Practice that will carry this learning through 2028.
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Launched the Organizational Wellbeing Community of Practice (CoP)
Developed in co-creation with 8 OEP members, the CoP launched in June 2025 and will run throughout 2028 to share learnings and support other organizations in addressing cultural change toward organizational wellbeing.
Implementing organizational wellbeing once felt more complex than it is, I was overwhelmed with many responsibilities. Through the Community of Practice, I found a clear way to start: forming a wellbeing council and learning from best practices — an excellent path that allows me to share this responsibility with the team and co-create together.
The Organizational Exploratory Program cohort reunites at the Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana.
Nektarios Liolios inspires changemakers with stories of transformative leadership at the Global Hearth Summit.
08
Inner Practice
Inner Development Program (IDP)
The Inner Development Program begins with a question most changemakers rarely allow themselves to ask: what does my own inner life need? In 2025, we graduated our 6th cohort — and at the Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana, something quietly extraordinary happened: alumni from 2015 and 2025 gathered in the same room, a decade of inner work meeting itself.
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Successfully graduated the 6th international cohort
Of the 18-month Inner Development Program (IDP), with high praise for community and personal impact.
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Hosted an uplifting reunion of IDP alumni at the Global Hearth Summit
Connecting participants from the first cohort (2015) through to the most recent one (2025).
The Inner Development Program was a very enriching and insightful experience: it was a learning journey for me, helping me to take better care of myself and to better recognize my needs. It gave me the opportunity to keep a healthy distance from my work and to stop over-identifying with it, thereby strengthening my mental health.
The Inner Development Program takes a holistic approach to personal development, incorporating arts-based therapies and healing practices.
Changemakers connect deeply with themselves and their peers, entering into a close-knit community of wellbeing champions.
Building The Evidence
The State of Changemaker Wellbeing Survey
We believe that lasting change requires strong knowledge. In 2025, we laid the foundations for a major sector survey through partnership-building, team up-skilling, engagement and planning. The survey has now launched, and findings are in progress.
In partnership with the Center for Healthy Minds (University of Wisconsin–Madison) and Humin, this survey is building a rigorous, globally representative picture of wellbeing in the social change sector — one that the whole field can learn from.
The findings will inform how funders, organizations, and changemakers themselves understand and invest in wellbeing — moving the conversation from anecdote to evidence.
Research Partner
Scope
A first-of-its-kind, globally representative study
Technology Partner
For
Funders, Organizations & Changemakers
Voices From The Movement
What Changemakers Told Us In 2025
It’s about going back to our roots as Africans — it really helps us live and resolve issues in our communities in ways that we understand.
Taking care of yourself is not stepping back from your community — it is how you stay for them.
Take care of the people — that is what ensures the impact is sustainable. Everything else follows from that.
What’s Next – 2026 & Beyond
Alignment, acceleration, and the evidence coming home.
01
Publish the State of Changemaker Wellbeing Survey
A rigorous global dataset on changemaker wellbeing.
02
Scale Regional Hearth Summits around the world
From Nairobi, Kenya, to Gifu, Japan, from São Paulo, Brazil, to Bangalore, India: building wellbeing ecosystems in every region.
03
Continue reaching changemakers through our networks
Accelerating toward a tipping point where wellbeing is mainstream in social change.
A Note To Close
We are on our way, and there is more to do.
Since 2012, wellbeing in changemaking has moved from taboo, to emerging, to a growing cultural current. By 2028, we believe it will be a fundamental norm — not a program, not an add-on, but the way social change is done, with hope, care, and joy at its center.
The work of 2025 is a step on that path. Thank you for walking it with us.
With Care,
The Wellbeing Project Team
