OkaySo

We are a young nonprofit that has already had a huge impact. This level of funding would catalyze our growth, allowing us to take what is already working and scale it.

We are based on human connection, but our technology is what fuels that connection, and ultimately our impact. It is critical to our success that we have a product that continues to improve in order to meet the changing needs of both young people and partners and increase our reach and retention. We will use the funding to support and expand our technical team and bring on a community manager who will support users, experts, and partners to ensure the best possible experience on OkaySo, ultimately enabling us to go from serving 15,000 young people to serving 150,000 or more.

OkaySo envisions a world where all individuals know and love their bodies, identities, and selves so that they can live freely and authentically as who they truly are. We do this by pairing young adults with trained experts through a secure and confidential free app accessible on all smartphones, and connecting teens with partner agencies who can provide deeper support where young people live. While anyone can utilize our services, our focus is on 16 to 24 year olds who identify as LGBTQ+, need access to reproductive health services, or who are otherwise disconnected from critical resources.

Founded in 2018 by queer sex educators who work with young people, we combat the shame, stigma, and misinformation that plague our society. In our first three years of operation we answered over 11,000 questions relating to dating, sexual health, identities, and self care with 95% of young people rating the experience as “helpful.” 

Many people live their entire lives believing that they are wrong, undeserving of love, weird, or broken. Our goal is to reach any young person who needs us, providing a safe space that supports their well-being, wherever and whenever they need it.

When it comes to teenage sexual health issues, most societies in the world use the Ostrich Method: burying their heads in the sand and pretending young people aren’t sexual beings. We expect teens to adeptly navigate incredibly complex issues in an increasingly complicated world, easily forgetting all of the pressure, fears, and shame we felt at that age. We expect schools to craft curricula that, with an average of 6.5 hours total instruction time (United States), will somehow magically create a world without teen pregnancy (57 per 1000) or STIs (1 in 4). 

Teen pregnancy and STIs are just one part of many intersecting issues including self-esteem, porn, and pleasure, yet programs that cover these topics are often pushed to the side because the public relations risks of funding them are seen as too high. 

OkaySo’s goal is to become the trusted place for teens to find support on sexual health issues. We use technology to connect young people with questions to teams of vetted experts who provide personalized responses. Users ask any question they have about sexual health, relationships, identity, and more and have a real conversation with vetted experts trained to provide accurate, non-judgmental information and support.

Where do you go when you’re 17 and your question is “I want to have anal sex, how do I do that”? 

This is a real and common question on OkaySo. Most sexuality education curricula and educators would never go near this topic. Traditional education is focused on prevention and never talks about pleasure; educators and nonprofits fear addressing more taboo topics will lead to backlash. 

At OkaySo we know that pleasure is part of safety and that we must be able to talk about anal pleasure - in a normalizing and relaxed way - before we can address safety or health. If we truly want to meet young people where they are, then trying to figure out how to have anal sex is where they are, right now. When real people answer this question with real information, young people feel seen and we build trust in an instant. Then, when we offer a different perspective, we’re more likely to be heard, shifting their worldview and creating lasting behavior change. 

We can live in a world without sexual assault, unplanned pregnancies, or STIs, but we need culture changing leadership that isn’t afraid to meet young people where they are. 

OkaySo has been featured twice in the App Store, been listed as one of the “New Apps We Love”, and we’ve answered over 11,000 questions from 15,000 users across the United States. Of surveyed users, 86% say they feel less alone after using OkaySo, 80% say they thought differently about their issue after talking with OkaySo experts, and 50% reported making some kind of change, from visiting a doctor to taking EC to avoiding a fake pregnancy center to coming out to their best friend. 

Our biggest impact happens during our 1:1 conversations with young people. Our experts are able to dig deep, add nuance, address deeper issues, and more. We train experts to go beyond the surface question to uncover the underlying cultural biases, assumptions, and stigmas that create unhealthy patterns. By doing this we are able to address the deeper issues that cause harmful behaviors and thoughts and help shift them, creating lasting behavior changes.