Worried about students’ mental health?
The most powerful thing you can do to prevent depression and suicide is to help students build positive relationships.
We can help! ProjectConnect’s mission is to help build connection and community.
Because when you connect, you protect.
It’s not a coincidence that we’re experiencing a loneliness epidemic AND a mental health epidemic. Studies show that having good relationships is the strongest protection there is against depression and suicide. Oh, and positive relationships are also the number one predictor of happiness/life satisfaction.
You—like most higher ed professionals—probably feel overwhelmed by students’ ever-increasing mental health needs, and worried about students slipping through the cracks. You probably recognize that the traditional model—of providing individual treatment and support after students are struggling—is unsustainable. There is a different way.
If you want to change students’ lives, help them build meaningful relationships.
Don’t have time to reinvent the wheel?
We offer 3 tiers of proven programs to help you build connection.
Explore Connection: Talks and workshops. This is great if you want to get a quick introduction to why connection matters and some actionable strategies to build it.
Experience Connection: Multi-session programs. This is great if you want to build lasting relationships, but don’t have the capacity to develop and facilitate a program yourself. We’ll facilitate a multi-session group or training to help participants build meaningful relationships.
Expand Connection: ProjectConnect Facilitator Certification. Train students, staff, and/or faculty on your campus to run ProjectConnect groups—and build connection—year after year.
We have worked with over 75 campuses to build stronger connection and community. Check out our testimonials.
1. Explore Connection
Talks and Workshops
Did you know that over half of college students report feeling lonely at any given time? And the idea that they should be surrounded by friends, having “the best four years of their lives” only increases their sense of isolation.
Students crave deeper, more meaningful friendships, but aren’t sure how to go about creating them. If you’d like a quick introduction to why we need to tackle the loneliness crisis, and how to build real connection, invite ProjectConnect Founder, Jessica Gifford, to give an engaging, funny, and practically useful talk or workshop. Participants will leave feeling less alone, and with a simple, science-backed “formula” for making close friends quickly.
The Secret to Making Friends in College
The Friendship Formula: how to have deeper, more meaningful relationships
Friends with Benefits (but not the kind you’re thinking)!
2. Experience Connection
Programs that build lasting relationships
Talks and workshops are great for a quick introduction to connection … but they rarely create lasting change. To do that, you need to create opportunities for students to build relationships over time. That’s why we offer longer, multi-session programs that help students get to know each other and establish friendships. This is a good option for you if you’re serious about building connection, but don’t have the capacity to train people on campus to become ProjectConnect facilitators, or oversee implementation of the program. We can offer a connection program for you! For example:
5 Friends in 5 Hours: This program helps incoming students develop friendships before they even arrive on campus, easing the transition (and their social anxiety). This is a 5-session program held live over Zoom for up to 100 students, delivered over the course of 5 consecutive weeks.
Social intelligence skills for college. This 5-session course is equal parts education and connection. Students learn—and practice— vital skills that are vital to making and sustaining meaningful relationships, but that are rarely explicitly taught.
ProjectConnect team-builder. This 5-session program helps groups, teams, or clubs connect quickly.
3. Expand Connection:
Become a certified ProjectConnect group facilitator.
The ProjectConnect program provides a proven roadmap for building relationships quickly. It provides a fun. easy way for participants to meet and make friends.
ProjectConnect is an evidence-based program that takes small groups of 5-7 students through a series of questions and fun activities that build closeness, connection, and community. ProjectConnect groups meet for a series of six 1-hour sessions. In this short period of time, participants reduce loneliness, establish meaningful friendships, and most importantly, rave about the experience!
98%
of participants would recommend ProjectConnect to a friend
95%
would like to participate again themselves
The ProjectConnect program can be used to:
Form new connections
You can use ProjectConnect pre-matriculation, during orientation, or as part of the first year experience to help entering students form friendships and accelerate their adjustment to campus. And/or you can offer open-enrollment groups for students who want to broaden their social circles.
Build bridges
ProjectConnect can be used to help develop positive relationships between groups, such as class years, identity groups, or between staff and faculty. This can reduce cliques and silos on campus, and help establish greater empathy, communication, and interrelationships.
Strengthen existing connections
ProjectConnect can be used to strengthen connection within groups, such as residential areas, affinity groups, majors, teams, etc. Students are often looking for opportunities to build stronger ties within their communities or with students who share similar interests.
“We implemented ProjectConnect in the spring of 2021, when our campus was operating virtually. Students really appreciated this opportunity to meet new people - whether it was new students looking to make friends, or returning students looking to expand their existing friend circles. ProjectConnect is the total package - it's simple and effective, easy to implement and scale, and accessible at a great price point.”
—Leah Berkenwald
Director of Health Promotion and Wellness Initiatives Brandeis University