As I write this, TEDNext is coming to a close. The final session of talks wrapped, attendees said their goodbyes and everyone dispersed to the cars and planes taking them home. I feel like I’ve blinked and it’s over — a surreal experience. But I know I’ll be turning over these words and experiences for months to come.

One word is sticking the most: Community. We’ve talked a lot about curiosity and connection, but what comes next? How can we design futures that build thriving, resilient communities? I spoke to a handful of attendees and speakers about this exact question, and they came back with clear, inspiring messages filled with hope.

Here are 3 tips for shaping a resilient community:

1. Get financially literate

Whether you like it or not, money touches nearly every part of your life. Understanding it can give you something deeper than security — it gives you freedom and choice. When you strengthen your own foundation, you can create the stability to lift others, too.

“The truth is, we're all financially struggling in some way. We all have financial trauma. We all have things we have to work through,” said Tori Dunlap, founder of Her First $100K, a money and career platform for women. In her Discovery Session, she explained that the first step to take charge of your financial future is simple: Start talking about money more often.

“We're more likely to talk about anything before we'll talk about money. We'll talk about sex, death, politics, religion … before we'll talk about money. I just facilitated 30 strangers having very vulnerable conversations about their trauma, about their wins, about their beliefs around money, and it was so, so cool," said Tori.

The community formed in the Discovery Session was powerful, and that was just a sampling of what organizations like TED and Her First $100K aim to foster in pursuit of a more resilient world.

“When you have a financial education, there's something so powerful about the way you show up in your relationships and your career,” Tori shared. Because when we empower one another, we all get stronger together.

2. Hold each other accountable

“Community is everything. When you have community, you have accountability,” said Tori. “You have people who are politely and caringly pushing you to be the best version of yourself, but you also have the support when things don't go as planned.”

That support is so crucial. Sometimes life is hard, but having a crew to pick you back up when you fall and give you hope to keep moving forward? That’s invaluable. It’s a two-way street, though, Sumeet Kanwar, head of the business analytics firm Hexagon Analytics & Strategy and a generous TEDNext Donor, reminded us.

“Community is what you bring into it,” said Sumeet. “You have to lean in and you have to be willing to share.”

While it might be scary to open yourself to others and allow them to see you fully — including your missteps and mistakes — this type of connection is what fosters the support we all need to grow. To create a lasting community, you have to first be vulnerable with strangers (though they won’t be strangers for long) and then ensure you’re holding one another to the values you connected over in the first place.

3. Look to the future

If you want to make a lasting impact, “look to the next generation,” said Josh Landay, executive director of Gifted Savings. “Come up with an idea that you think can benefit them. Find that idea and run wholeheartedly. That is the future.”

Empowering young people helps strengthen a community for the long term. Gifted Savings is seeing this play out right now with a radical experiment: In partnership with TED-Ed, they granted every Clarke County public high school senior in Athens, Georgia a $1,000 investment portfolio — and the education to put it to use.

Fifteen students and teachers from this program had the opportunity to join the TEDNext community this year, and what a joy it was to have them participate in the transformative programming.

“The thing that's unique about TEDNext is that it's encouraging people to envision ‘future you.’ Not just future you on an individual basis, but on a collective basis — what that means for your community and what that means for us as a society,” said Josh. “Whether it's politics or financial empowerment or science and AI, you get to combine all of those things together and discuss how they intersect so that we can really make the world a better place.”

If one thing is clear, it’s that a stronger future starts now, with collective support and sharing ideas and perspectives.

Ready to join the TED community?

There’s nothing like being at a TED conference in person. This week was Josh’s first, and he captured the experience perfectly:

“Every time I've watched a TED Talk on YouTube, I've walked away feeling like I've learned something and I've walked away feeling inspired. But when you come to a TED conference and you hear those talks in person, you can feel the hair stand up on your arm. You can feel your heartbeat quicken a little bit. You can feel that the person to your right and to your left gets that as well,” he shared. In person, you get “that community experience of feeling inspired and educated.”

If this sounds like your next move, we hope you’ll join us in beautiful Vancouver, Canada for TED2026: All of Us, April 13-17 next year. Not only will this be our last year in this beautiful venue, it will also play host to the finalists of the TEDx Global Idea Search — where 9 speakers from 9 unique countries around the world will join us to give their TED Talk (Follow their road to TED2026 here).

If you cannot join us in Canada next year or if an online community is more your style, you can find serendipitous connections and inspiring live conversations with speakers by becoming a TED Member. Learn more and join here.

Alright folks, that’s it from me for now. 👋 Thanks for tagging along for my very first TEDNext! Hope to see you at TED2026.

Your friend at TED,

Renae Reints