100,000 Founding Scholars. A 1,000-child IRB validation cohort. The first prospective longitudinal study linking daily readiness to retention in youth sport. $5M in catalytic philanthropic capital seeds it – then the commercial model sustains it.
Your philanthropic gift triggers a chain reaction.
Here’s what it builds.
At $50 per child, your philanthropic gift gives up to 100,000 Founding Scholars two years of R1 access – across multiple sports, nationwide, designed for balanced representation. These scholars are the evidence engine: longitudinal readiness data disaggregated by gender, age, sport, and geography, growing from day one.
Inside the Founding Scholar program runs a separate, rigorous 1,000-child IRB validation cohort with a matched control group. Pearl IRB, AAHRPP-accredited. Principal Investigator: Dr. Alexandra Abbott, MD, board-certified pediatric sports medicine physician at Stanford Children’s Health. This is the layer that publishes – peer-reviewed, tied to named investigators and a credentialed institution.
Together, the Founding Scholar program and the validation cohort produce permanent scientific infrastructure. Researchers, clinicians, and youth sport organizations will anchor their work to it for decades. A generation of new understanding – built once.
Not a sustaining grant – a catalytic one. Every dollar does three jobs at once, then the commercial pay-it-forward model takes over.
Read: Who actually owns athlete development in youth sports? →
Four things your philanthropic gift goes to – and nothing else.
Design, development, and operation of the R1 platform. App infrastructure. Daily program delivery. Coach success tools. Parent guidance and readiness visibility. Continuous refinement of R1 infrastructure based on athlete, coach, and parent experience.
Generative AI validation. Longitudinal analysis. Dataset construction. Publication preparation. Federal research readiness.
Core research team. Pediatric sports medicine. Mental performance. Sleep and nutrition science. REDs-informed programming. Age and ability-guided strength, coordination, and movement literacy.
Enrollment and onboarding. NGB integration. Club-level support. Legal. Accounting. Insurance. Compliance. Reporting.
Detailed financials are shared with all partners as part of regular reporting. Budget allocation scales with the study and is reviewed with each partner individually.
Founding partners are named on the dataset and all publications that follow. This dataset is built once.
Early access to findings – first look at study results and the federal pathway.
R1 receives philanthropic gifts through Players Philanthropy Fund (PPF), a 501(c)(3) public charity recognised across sporting philanthropy for its rigour and oversight. PPF accepts the gift, provides fiduciary management, financial reporting, and audit-grade governance for the study, and ensures every dollar is directed to its stated purpose. Your gift is tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.
Here’s how it unfolds.
Gifts committed before NGB enrollment (mid-2026) are recognized as founding study partners. After enrollment begins, the study proceeds with confirmed funding.
Foundations with gender-equity mandates: R1’s study generates the first gender-disaggregated readiness dataset at national scale.
Ask about the girls-focused cohort →
Every child in this study has a dream.
The parents dropping them off at practice don’t know what they don’t know. The coaches sense something is off but can’t name it. The children go quiet and nobody catches it in time. That’s not a failure of caring. It’s a failure of data. Your gift is what makes readiness visible.
Serious conversations happen person to person. Every prospective partner speaks directly with the founder.
No one has been this kind of partner for youth sport.
Your gift is what changes that.