College should be a time of connection and belonging, yet loneliness, anxiety, and mental health challenges have reached unprecedented levels. Future Friends was created to help change that through live music, mental wellness activations, and shared campus experiences. Students can build authentic relationships, discover available resources, and feel part of a community where they are never alone.

Students. Students. Students. Future Friends is student-powered from start to finish. We partner with colleges and universities that truly care about student mental wellness, but the best ideas always come from the students themselves. From planning and programming to the on-campus experience, student leaders help shape every event—making each Future Friends stop feel authentic, relevant, and uniquely their own.

Students create the Future Friends experience. They choose the activations that fit their campus—the lineup includes phone-free meetups, Common Denominator screenings, run clubs, yoga and mindfulness, financial literacy game shows, female empowerment sessions, line dancing, and wellness speakers. No two events are the same because no two campuses are the same. Every two-day experience ends with an intimate live concert that celebrates community, connection, and friendship.

We partner with each university's counseling center, student life team, and NAMI to show students that support is already all around them—they just need to know where to find it.

Future Friends is made possible by generous donors and purpose-driven brands that believe every student deserves connection, support, and a campus that puts mental wellness first. The only cost to attend the closing concert is a small donation to NAMI or another mental wellness organization chosen by the campus or artist.

Our goal is simple: create connection, build community, and remind students they are not alone during a time of growing loneliness and uncertainty. By shining a spotlight on campus counseling, student life, and NAMI, Future Friends helps students discover the support already available to them. Beginning in Fall 2026, attendees will also have access to Two Bridge Support, our Psychological First Aid training program, designed to help students recognize distress, respond with empathy, and connect others with support.

The schedule for the fall of 2026 is as follows: 1. September 30 – October 1, 2026: University of Wisconsin 2. October 5 – October 6, 2026: University of Michigan 3. October 28 – October 29, 2026: Indiana University Each 2-day event includes a variety of mental fitness and mental wellness-related activations.