The Tomberg Family Philanthropies is pleased to announce our 2026 grants. We are honored to support a number of outstanding projects and organizations working to improve the world in our four primary funding areas: poverty alleviation, the environment, health, and education.
We congratulate the following sixteen organizations on their successful grant requests. Follow our social media pages for additional information about each project and organization.
Note: The descriptions below come from the organizations and their materials. References to “our,” “we,” etc. refer to our grantees and not to Tomberg Family Philanthropies.
American Career College Educational Foundation
Funding Area: Education
The American Career College Educational Foundation (ACCEF) works to expand educational opportunity for underserved populations across Southern California. Its programs are designed to help individuals build academic skills, increase access to higher education and employment, and strengthen long-term self-sufficiency. ACCEF combines instruction, mentoring, and supportive services to help students overcome barriers that may otherwise prevent them from completing their education.
The project we support expands ACCEF’s Justice-Involved Youth Program in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. Through in-person instruction, restorative practices, bilingual tutoring, and academic support, the program helps justice-involved youth prepare for and pass the GED exam, opening pathways to further education, employment, and reduced recidivism.
Andando
Funding Area: Poverty Alleviation
Andando works to alleviate poverty through community development in rural Senegal. By investing in long-term partnerships and locally rooted solutions, the organization supports communities through programs in agriculture, water access, education, health, and economic opportunity. Its work places particular emphasis on strengthening the role of women’s cooperatives and building systems that improve family well-being over time.
The project we support expands Andando’s dryland aquaculture initiative in rural Senegal. Building on prior success, the project will integrate aquaculture into additional women’s cooperative gardens while strengthening the local systems needed to improve food security, increase access to protein, enrich soils, and raise household incomes.
Arkansas Abortion Support Network
Funding Area: Health
Arkansas Abortion Support Network works to expand access to reproductive healthcare resources in one of the most restrictive environments in the country. The organization focuses on practical support and equitable access, helping people navigate barriers created by poverty, distance, stigma, and limited healthcare infrastructure. Its work increasingly centers on prevention and access to contraception in communities where options have narrowed significantly.
The project we support, Pathways to Prevention: Emergency & Everyday Contraceptive Access, will increase access to emergency contraception and over-the-counter contraceptive products on Arkansas college campuses. By helping campus partners maintain supplies for rapid access, the program addresses a growing gap in preventive reproductive healthcare.
Charleston Legal Access
Funding Area: Poverty Alleviation
Charleston Legal Access provides affordable and accessible legal services to communities that are often unable to secure representation through traditional legal markets. The organization works to reduce barriers to justice by offering practical legal help to individuals and families facing difficult and often urgent circumstances. Its work is rooted in the belief that legal assistance should not be out of reach for people of limited means.
The project we support helps sustain Charleston Legal Access’s newly launched Immigration Law Program. The program expands access to legal representation for immigrants facing asylum, removal defense, humanitarian relief, and related legal matters in South Carolina, where affordable and trustworthy immigration legal services remain extremely limited.
Engineers in Action
Funding Area: Health
Engineers in Action works with underserved rural communities to carry out sustainable engineering projects that improve access to essential resources. Water is the unifying focus of its work, which includes water systems, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, irrigation, and related efforts that strengthen public health and community well-being. The organization emphasizes collaboration and local partnership in designing and implementing each project.
The project we support continues Engineers in Action’s multi-year pilot to expand water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure in schools in Eswatini. Building on earlier groundwork, this phase helps improve reliable access to potable water and school WASH systems in communities where the need remains substantial.
Etta Projects
Funding Area: Health
Etta Projects partners with Bolivian communities to improve health, sanitation, and access to clean water through sustainable, locally driven solutions. By combining training, infrastructure development, and strong community collaboration, Etta Projects addresses immediate needs while building a foundation for long-term well-being. Each initiative is designed to empower local leaders with the skills and resources needed to maintain and expand these efforts, ensuring lasting impact and healthier, more resilient communities.
The project we support is Etta Projects’ Community Health Promoters Program. Through this initiative, 40 women in rural Bolivia will receive two years of training in first aid, life-saving interventions, and health education, then help manage community health kits that improve access to essential care while strengthening women’s leadership at the local level.
Give Us Wings
Funding Area: Poverty Alleviation
Give Us Wings partners with communities in rural Uganda to expand access to health care, education, and economic opportunity. The organization works alongside local cooperatives and families to support practical, community-based solutions that strengthen livelihoods and reduce extreme poverty. Its approach emphasizes long-term partnership and investments that help people build more stable futures for themselves and their communities.
The project we support provides additional resources to the Buyemba Farmers Cooperative Society as it works to strengthen its cassava flour and baked goods enterprise. Funding will help purchase equipment that improves efficiency, product quality, and market access, supporting the cooperative’s path toward becoming a more self-sustaining and professional business.
Jacotoco Conservation Foundation / Cloud Forest Organics
Funding Area: Environment
Cloud Forest Organics is leading cloud forest recovery from its 170-acre pilot site in Ecuador’s upper Amazon. Through pioneering research and the restoration of deforested pasture-land, the organization is creating replicable models to prevent the loss of Earth’s most at-risk forests. Working in partnership with Fundación Jocotoco, it is helping protect a critical ecosystem that serves as one of the sacred headwaters of the Amazon basin.
The project we support advances the Crystal Frog Research Center, a first-of-its-kind cloud forest recovery center and living laboratory. Funding will help equip the Center with scientific tools for on-site research into flora, fauna, reforestation, and other innovations that support restoration and new livelihood opportunities for local communities.
Notify Health
Funding Area: Health
Notify Health protects children in Nigeria from preventable illness and death by helping parents complete their child’s vaccination journey. Working in partnership with government health authorities and community organizations, Notify Health delivers low-cost SMS and voice reminders that guide parents through the ten-appointment routine immunization schedule in local languages and on basic mobile phones. To date, Notify Health has reached over 20,000 children across two Nigerian states, where timely vaccination rates among reminded families increased significantly.
The project we support pilots Notify Health’s child health reminder system in Taraba State, Nigeria. By helping health workers improve record-keeping and send personalized reminders with appointment dates and clinic details, the program strengthens follow-through on childhood vaccination and builds lasting capacity within the local health system.
One Heart Worldwide
Funding Area: Health
One Heart Worldwide works to make pregnancy and childbirth safer for underserved women and newborns in Nepal. The organization partners with government and local health systems to improve maternal and neonatal care, particularly in rural and remote communities where access to quality services remains limited. Its work focuses on practical, evidence-based interventions that improve outcomes for both mothers and infants.
The project we support brings One Heart Worldwide’s Simulation-Based Mentorship Program to a new district in Nepal. Through low-dose, high-frequency training and facility-based follow-up, the program helps birth attendants strengthen lifesaving clinical skills in maternal and newborn healthcare.
PRISM FL, Inc.
Funding Area: Education
PRISM works to expand access to LGBTQ-inclusive education, leadership development, and supportive resources for young people in South Florida. The organization seeks to create safer and more empowering environments for LGBTQ+ youth through programming that builds community, resilience, civic awareness, and peer connection. Its work is especially important in settings where many students face social isolation or barriers to participation.
The project we support is PRISM’s Student Ambassador Program, a growing student-led network of LGBTQ+ student leaders and organizations across South Florida. The program provides monthly meetings, campus support, policy education, and leadership development while expanding access to students who may not be able to participate through school-based channels alone.
Public News Service
Funding Area: Education
Public News Service is a public interest newswire that produces reporting for local media outlets across the country, with a focus on communities and issues that are often underserved by mainstream media. Its multi-format journalism is designed to be accessible to print, radio, digital, and broadcast outlets, helping strengthen local news ecosystems and improve civic access to reliable information.
The project we support helps launch Alaska News Service, a local newswire focused on serving Alaska residents and media outlets. By expanding access to public interest reporting in a state facing major local news gaps, the project supports a more informed and engaged public.
RESULTS Educational Fund
Funding Area: Poverty Alleviation
RESULTS Educational Fund works to build the public and political will to end poverty. Through advocacy, organizing, and leadership development, the organization equips everyday people to engage policymakers and press for stronger anti-poverty policies. Its approach centers on helping constituents use their voices effectively in the democratic process, especially in places where key decisions are being made.
The project we support expands RESULTS’ network of constituent advocates in politically important geographies, including rural areas and underrepresented states. The goal is to strengthen public pressure for policies that reduce poverty and improve support for programs that help families meet basic needs.
Solar Electric Light Fund
Funding Area: Poverty Alleviation
The Solar Electric Light Fund works to support sustainable development through solar energy and related infrastructure in underserved communities. By combining renewable energy solutions with local partnership and practical service delivery, the organization helps improve quality of life, strengthen economic opportunity, and increase access to essential resources such as water and sanitation.
The project we support brings solar-powered running water and WASH services to two community business centers in Kalalé, Benin. Building on earlier work in the region, the project will improve access to clean water, sanitation, hygiene, and expanded business activity for thousands of community members.
The Lunchbox Fund
Funding Area: Education
The Lunchbox Fund works to reduce hunger as a barrier to learning by providing school meals to children in communities facing high levels of poverty and food insecurity. Its programs are rooted in the understanding that nutrition, attendance, and educational opportunity are deeply connected. By supporting meal access, the organization helps children arrive at school ready to learn and remain engaged in their education.
The project we support expands meal support for preschool-aged children in Mozambique. In addition to providing hot meals, the project helps establish new preschool access in underserved communities and creates stipended local roles for meal preparation and early childhood teaching.
Three Rivers Waterkeeper
Funding Area: Environment
Three Rivers Waterkeeper protects the water quality of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers and their watersheds. These waterways provide drinking water to millions of people and vital habitat for many plants and animals. Through scientific and legal advocacy, the organization works to hold polluters accountable, enforce clean water laws, and empower community voices in defense of public and environmental health.
The project we support will document, map, and analyze industrial waste flows throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania watersheds. By identifying pollution pathways and regulatory loopholes, the project aims to strengthen protections for regional waterways and the communities that depend on them.
Conclusion
We would like to thank all the organizations that submitted letters of inquiry and full grant requests. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn about so many thoughtful and impactful efforts. To those organizations we were unable to support this year, our decision should not be taken as a judgment on the merits of your work. We wish you success in securing funding from other sources.
The mission of Tomberg Family Philanthropies is to support well-run and effective programs that make a difference in the areas of poverty alleviation, the environment, health, and education. Our focus remains on supporting projects that help people and communities build lasting capabilities beyond the life of a single grant.
You can learn more about us at https://www.tombergphilanthropies.org/.
