There’s power in connecting with others around a shared cause. Explore these standout apps to find your community, make an impact, broaden your horizons, and prioritize your wellness.

‣ Find connection with nature and the Black community through events featured in Outdoor Afro, where trip leaders take groups on sunset hikes, beach bike rides, and community climbs.

‣ On the business-oriented social network Hey Famm, connect with fellow professionals for career development and networking opportunities.

‣ Inspired to meet people IRL? Meetup and Luma share events near you, like litter cleanup gatherings and neighborhood political discussions.

‣ Spill is a home for online conversations for the Black community and beyond. A few words, still images, GIFs, and videos all blend beautifully in each post (known as a Spill).

‣ Created for members of the LGBTQ+ community, the social platform Lex hosts a range of in-app groups, including “Black Neurodivergents” and “Black Queer Group.”

‣ With Fable, join book clubs like “Black Women Reading Together,” “Discover Latinx Literature,” or “Sapphic and Proud” to get in the mix with fellow bookworms who share your interests.

‣ Build one-on-one and group connections alike with the women-led social network BFF.

‣ Slowly fosters connections through letter writing. Share a bit about yourself with the Slowly community, or browse letters others have posted on the Discover People tab. Tap the reply button to send a message on a cute digital postcard; the farther away your recipient lives, the longer your message will take to reach them.

‣ More apps for connecting with your community:

‣ Two ways to fight waste at a local level: Too Good To Go helps you buy unsold food from local restaurants at a discount, and Olio allows you to trade items you no longer need with neighbors.

‣ 5 Calls puts the latest news from Congress and info on upcoming bills in one place. Select a cause you support and a representative to contact. The app shares how to reach their office—and provides a suggested script to make your voice heard.

‣ Designed to make activism approachable, chilli empowers people to take meaningful environmental actions. Whether through a campaign to stop offshore drilling or to protect lakes from forever chemicals, the app turns low-effort advocacy into collective pressure for structural change.

‣ Round up the cost of your Lyft rides to send the difference to organizations like the ACLU and Everytown for Gun Safety.

‣ Support marginalized communities when you shop. These apps make it easy.

‣ Create your own fundraiser group, donate to crowdfunding efforts, and discover nonprofits near you with these apps.

‣ With the oral-history project StoryCorps, encourage friends and family with opposing political views to record honest interviews with each other that will later be archived in the Library of Congress. Want to record moments just for yourself? Try Leaf’s daily recording prompts.

‣ Ground News compares coverage of a topic across different news outlets and rates the political bias of each publication. Boring Report strips its news feed of sensationalist headlines to deliver just the relevant facts.

‣ History comes alive with Kinfolk’s virtual monuments of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and other historical figures. View them in AR and learn about their stories through articles, playlists, and primary-source documents.

‣ Dive deep into important moments of U.S. history with video lectures by top professors in The Great Courses Plus. Or explore history lessons in Khan Academy’s Arts and Humanities section.

‣ Learn on the go with book summaries from Blinkist and Headway. Blinkist’s “Cultivate Resilience and Determination” guide shares lessons from Serena Williams’ life. Headway’s summary of Anna Malaika Tubbs’ The Three Mothers explores historical events through the perspectives of the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin.

‣ Stay informed with these news apps made by and for underrepresented communities.

‣ Headspace’s “For Challenging Times” and “Shine” collections offer meditations on dealing with injustice and tragedy. Browse Calm for collections like “Feelings on Climate & Nature” and “Navigating Injustice.”

‣ Open’s nervous-system reset courses are perfect when you feel out of sync with yourself. Or enjoy a moment of mindfulness with the app’s beautiful breathwork timer.

‣ Voda’s “Queer Joy” collections are full of breathwork exercises and affirmations to help you explore your identity.

‣ Evolve offers a library of mental-health resources specific to the LGBTQ+ community—all created in collaboration with a global network of therapists.

‣ When you head outdoors for your next walk, consider listening to the Time to Walk series on Apple Fitness+. You’ll be joined by figures like Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who developed ocean policy for the Environmental Protection Agency