The projects are developed and led alongside Helena’s members, who collaborate globally and throughout the year in Helena meetings.

It is important to us that Helena Projects have a couple key traits. The projects are scalable, capable of effecting change far outside just one community. They are also high-leverage: we focus on solutions that yield the maximum result for the resources we put into them. Most importantly, we believe that Helena Projects should be developed from first principles.

We always seek to find an objective path to a solution, irrespective of whether that path differs from the norm or proves our assumptions wrong.

Helena does not choose projects based on issue area. Instead, we are influenced by a project’s expected impact, feasibility, and relevance to pressing global trends of the next 50 years.

In order to execute Helena Projects successfully, we challenge ourselves to operate in many different ways. We often bring together expert technical advisors, conduct our own internal research, secure capital, join forces with or acquire existing organizations, tell a project’s story through original content or earned media, and bring project-specific operators onto the Helena team. And while some projects are fully incubated and operated inside of Helena, others are geared to support the existing work of Helena members in new and unique ways.