Incubating Change in Europe
Philipp von der Wippel discovered his love for community engagement as a high schooler in Munich. He realized early that powerful things could happen if young people were involved in finding solutions to pressing issues—they just needed the right tools to help them get started.
Philipp is one of the hundreds of emerging leaders from across Europe who will join President Obama for a town hall about the future of the region, so we spent a day with him to get a closer look at his work at the nonprofit he founded, ProjectTogether Opens in a new tab , and the journey that led him to create it.
Philipp founded ProjectTogether—a nonprofit that motivates young people to put their civic engagement ideas into action through free online and telephone coaching and pairs them with philanthropies interested in supporting them.
Today, ProjectTogether is the biggest grassroots social incubator in Germany, hosting upwards of 700 initiatives.
Philipp came up with the idea for the digital marketplace after noticing that many philanthropic initiatives weren’t able to direct resources to the projects that needed them the most.
“I started ProjectTogether to make sure young people can solve challenges and feel empowered to bring their social innovations to the next level.”
The social incubator’s work isn’t just based in Berlin; Project Together hosts bootcamps across the region and also coaches young people online.
“We want to promote the idea of social entrepreneurship and attract talent to the impact sector to solve problems that would otherwise go to normal businesses and institutions.”