Uncle Charlie & Aunt Liz · Art · Fuller Road, Montgomery, Alabama
Have you ever asked yourself the question?
How this initiative began — and why the dataset is so unusual.
Have you ever asked yourself the question? What do I want to be when I grow up? Many people have, and over time our answers can change and usually do. As we move through life many times we have goals, and then once we achieve those goals we still seem to want more. I know I sure have, and I believe this experience might also be true for many of you.
In October of 2024, I personally was reaching the same transition point. My status was the following: Through God's grace, I had managed to re-imagine and re-build my career pathway and oh had it been a challenging journey filled with a re-discovery of all the wonderful things we tend to have inside. However understated these things might be. I'm talking about things like lived experience, some might even call it "wisdom." Publicly my peers had also identified my work as an example. I was playing a key role in helping make real behavioral health transformation on the ground in partnership with federal and state entities.
It was around this time where I started re-visiting the question of "What's next?" I believed that I had many lessons that I could share with others and more than anything I was interested in lifting up youth, teens, and young adults. This has always been where my heart resonates most.
Fast forward to today, this new step has now impacted many people far beyond what I could have imagined. Even more exciting it appears to work with all types of people willing to set aside 2 to 3 hours a week to have real conversations with others in small group and one to one settings. This has led to global conversations with people, leaders, and agencies that also impact many types of people in meaningful ways. The aspect that is even more unexpected is that I literally tripled my earned wages while truly pursuing a solution I know can elevate others towards their purpose.
This is Voice Up. We connect people to purpose.
In the early days (October 2024), within about 30 days this initiative began to receive interest at an unprecedented clip. So much so I had to figure out a way to slow the interest and uptake down. Throughout the process I implemented a variety of strategies to screen people out but even with these strategies in place people still kept coming. At one point I was personally receiving one application every 15 seconds of the day for a free internship position focused on improving your health and connecting to your purpose. I received so many applications that two of the larger job boards (global brands) actually stopped posting my opportunities because I was getting too high a response rate for an unpaid internship. It was literally disrupting their business model.
This in itself represents the type of need that exists today in our society around the true experiences of improving our mental health and reducing our collective isolation from each other. We have all the technology we need but we don't have those true relationships that sustain us and make our lives better. Those relationships require a safe space and a supportive community that's willing to embrace patience, precision, and humility.
I knew that the information I was collecting represented something unique. However, I did not know the degree to which this dataset had the potential to open the door to a potentially new line of evidence based inquiry focused on studying how people connect to purpose, and even a new way to measure purpose within individuals and communities.
Many times people use the word purpose in the context of a theoretical or abstract type of thing. At Voice Up this is not the case. We actually are able to measure, track, and predict things focused on what people actually do and how they go about creating real steps that clarify what their purpose might be and how it evolves over time. We believe the applications have the potential to uncover several significant truths about our collective journey as humans (especially in this age of artificial intelligence). We are using this insight to launch an entire new field and entirely new institution dedicated to that discipline. All are welcome. We connect people to purpose. One conversation at a time.
Your DrPH Cohort Checklist
Every student in the Mercer DrPH Research Cohort does the same steps. Each step builds on the one before it and gets you ready for your Applied Practice Experience. Use the links below to finish each step. Once you join the cohort, your progress is tracked for you.
APE connection: these steps prepare your own project. Your analysis, your presentation, and your paper are your own work, and your project answers one question two ways, with numbers and with words.
Set Up Your Account
Answer three quick questions about yourself: what inspires your purpose, how you want to help others, and two words (plus an emoji) that describe you. They are optional, and preferred. They shape your 8-week guide, and nothing else in the program waits on them.
Join the cohort to trackSign Your APE Agreement
Read each expectation and put your initials by it. Then sign your Applied Practice Experience agreement. The agreement holds the commitments for your placement at the Applied Purpose Science Research Lab.
Join the cohort to trackRead the Introduction to Where the Data Comes From
Read the background story. It shows where the Voice Up data comes from and why it matters. When you finish, check the box on the page to say you read the introduction.
Join the cohort to trackExplore the Research Behind Voice Up
Voice Up rests on peer-reviewed evidence. Work through the three research sections: the Research Behind Voice Up hub, the RAND Study, and the Loneliness Brief. Then check the box on the page to mark Step 2B complete.
Join the cohort to trackPick Your Research Area
Look at the five research workstreams. Choose your two favorites and tell us why each one draws you. We use your choices to assign your workstream.
Join the cohort to trackRead & Acknowledge: your responsibilities as a researcher (unlocks the Data Library)
Transcript corpus (forthcoming — separate acknowledgment required)
These steps are for students enrolled in the DrPH Research Cohort (Mercer). Sign up for the cohort to unlock tracking.
Stuck on a step? Submit a help ticket and we’ll fix it fast — or email info@ellingtonbooks.com.
