RFG has announced nearly $350,000 in grants to seven nonprofit organizations that prepare Americans for public service and strengthen the pipeline of globally engaged leaders. The one-year grants support projects that promote the importance of public service, build the future leadership pipeline across levels of government, and offer experiential learning that strengthens participants’ skills to inform policy, engage in diplomacy, and lead collaboratively.
The grantees were selected through a competitive, invitation-only process. RFG reviewed more than 60 organizations, invited 22 to submit letters of interest, and advanced nine to the full proposal stage before selecting the final seven. Together, their projects will reach middle and high school students, graduate students, RFG Fellows and alumni, women stepping into civic leadership, and early-career jobseekers entering state and local government.
Building the Next Generation of Public Servants
The grants arrive as public institutions at every level work to replace experienced staff and attract new talent. State and local governments employ 19.9 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than nine times the federal civilian workforce. Yet retirement-age workers in the sector outnumber those ages 20 to 29 by two to one, according to Work for America, and state and local government has no structured early-career pathway comparable to the federal Presidential Management Fellows program, which was itself sunset in 2025. RFG’s grantmaking is designed to meet future leaders earlier and more often, with hands-on experience, mentors, and networks that turn an interest in public service into a career.
Global challenges increasingly reach those levels, too. States, cities, and counties now manage their own international partnerships, and roughly 125 multilateral networks of subnational governments operate worldwide. Several 2026 projects prepare participants for that reality, from Meridian International Center’s diplomatic skills training to National Youth Leadership Council service-learning projects that connect local issues to global challenges.
“Public service deserves our respect, encouragement, and sustained investment. We want outstanding students to be able to choose government careers where their talents can make a lasting difference, without the cost of graduate education standing in their way,” said Julia Robertson, President of the Robertson Foundation for Government. “My grandparents believed that investing in the education of future public servants would strengthen our country and its leadership in the world. We carry that conviction forward by supporting students committed to government service, particularly in international affairs, public policy, and diplomacy. These seven organizations complement RFG’s graduate fellowships by helping people discover public service, develop their abilities, and find pathways into government. Together, the result is highly skilled, globally aware public service leaders to serve our country and help build a more peaceful world.”
2026 RFG Grantees
| Organization / Funding | Project |
|---|---|
| Alliance for Peacebuilding $50,000 | Preparing Future Public Service Leaders to Promote PeaceSkills-building workshops, a Congressional Hill Day, a negotiation simulation, and networking receptions, including at the PeaceCon 2027 conference, for students, emerging professionals, and former foreign policy personnel, with free three-year membership for student and early-career participants. |
| Cultural Vistas $50,000 | Global Governance Leadership LabA 12-week virtual leadership program pairing 20 RFG Fellows and recent alumni with 20 international public sector peers. Cross-national teams produce comparative policy briefs on governance, accountability, and civic technology challenges, supported by peer mentors and dialogues with senior practitioners. |
| Meridian International Center $48,113 | Diplomacy LabA seven-session virtual course for 35 to 40 RFG Fellows and alumni beginning in January 2027, covering negotiation, multilateral and public diplomacy, cross-cultural communication, and emerging fields such as technology and space diplomacy, with ongoing access to Meridian convenings and its DiplomacyRISE alumni network. |
| National Youth Leadership Council $50,000 | Youth Public Service & Global Leadership InitiativeEngages 300 middle school, high school, and early college students in service-learning projects that connect local issues to global challenges, a youth-led public service storytelling campaign, a speaker series with public servants and diplomats, and a national virtual summit. |
| She Should Run$50,000 | Local Leader LabTwo cohorts, in fall 2026 and spring 2027, of a nonpartisan civic leadership program for 300 women, combining facilitated sessions, one-on-one coaching, and participant-led civic projects that prepare women for community leadership, appointed boards, and elected office. |
| Women’s Foreign Policy Group$50,000 | Paving Pathways: Expanding Mentorship and Career Development for the Next Generation of Women Foreign Policy LeadersExpanded roundtables with senior women leaders and an annual career day, paid internships for 15 to 18 interns a year, a members-only job and internship database, and 20 need-based membership scholarships for students and young professionals. |
| Work for America$50,000 | University Collaboration to Build the Early Career Pipeline into State and Local GovernmentExpands Civic Match, Work for America’s free national job-matching platform, to early-career jobseekers through collaboration with RFG partner schools and the Volcker Alliance network, government career readiness resources, and connections to more than 300 government employers in nearly every state. |
Connecting Grantees with the RFG Network
The grants complement RFG’s new national fellowship model, under which RFG will invest $2.1 million over four years in graduate fellowships across 13 graduate schools at 10 partner universities. Together, the fellowships and organization grants form a single strategy to recruit, prepare, and connect public service leaders across levels of government, sectors, and career stages.
Several projects engage RFG Fellows and alumni directly, and grantees will join fellows, alumni, and partner university leaders at the 2026 RFG Annual Summit in Washington, D.C., on November 19–20. Meridian International Center will lead a diplomacy simulation for fellows and alumni. Work for America will present to RFG’s new University Leadership Council the Civic Match university pilot, co-funded by RFG, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Knight Foundation. The pilot reaches campuses through the Volcker Alliance network, which includes all 10 RFG partner universities.