Category: Foundation News

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.

RFG has announced its new national fellowship model with 12 graduate schools at 10 universities selected as its RFG Fellowship partners. Under the model, the foundation will invest $2.1 million over four years to fund graduate fellowships in international affairs, policy, and related fields to build the leadership capacity of globally aware students preparing for careers in public service, and will connect fellows, alumni, and partner schools in a single national network.

The partner universities were chosen through a competitive selection process that began with 16 invited institutions. Together, they offer master’s programs spanning diplomacy, democracy and governance, development and human rights, trade, security, technology, environment, global health and more. Seven of the partners are public universities, and four are Minority Serving Institutions, reflecting RFG’s commitment to broadening access to the fellowship.

Public Service in a Changing World

The announcement comes as the public service talent pipeline faces sustained strain. More than 317,000 employees left federal service in 2025, according to U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) figures, and Pew Research Center found the federal workforce shrank by a net 10.3 percent, with the share of employees who had less than two years of service falling from 16.2 to 10.3 percent. In August 2025, OPM also formally sunset the Presidential Management Fellows program, long the federal government’s flagship pathway from graduate school into public service. At the same time, most public service happens beyond the federal level: state and local governments employ nearly 20 million people, more than nine times the federal civilian workforce. RFG’s new model is designed to sustain a steady supply of highly skilled, globally minded leaders across levels of government and the institutions that work alongside it.

Public service fellowships are a proven route into government. A Harvard Kennedy School People Lab study of four public service fellowship programs found that fellows were 30 percentage points more likely than comparable finalists to hold a government job in the year after their fellowship, with effects lasting up to eight years. By expanding to 10 partner universities, RFG broadens access to that pathway and grows the corps of leaders prepared to serve.

“America needs globally engaged public servants now more than ever,” said Julia Robertson, President of the Robertson Foundation for Government. “Charles and Marie Robertson believed that a free society depends on citizens who make public service their primary focus, and this national model builds on that conviction through expansion beyond federal government service to include engagement at local, state, and international levels. By partnering with graduate schools at 10 outstanding universities across the country, we are opening the RFG Fellowship to include even more talented Americans and connecting them in one network committed to democratic governance, diplomacy, and international cooperation. Hiring trends may ebb and flow, but the need for leaders with a strategic problem-solving mindset who can collaborate and innovate as they navigate a rapidly changing, increasingly complex, interconnected world will not.”

How the Fellowship Works

•   Funding: Up to $35,000 per year for two years — up to $70,000 per fellow — applied to tuition, stipends, internships, professional development, and related graduate school expenses.

•   Cohort size: 13 new RFG Fellows each year across the network, beginning with students entering graduate school in fall 2027.

•   Selection: Partner schools lead recruitment and selection applying RFG’s criteria for an annually expanding corps of public service leaders. Prospective fellows apply first through the admissions process of a participating partner school and then a streamlined RFG Fellowship-specific application.

•   Service commitment: Fellows commit to at least three years of qualifying employment within seven years of graduation. Eligible roles are primarily positions with international or transborder dimensions in federal, state, local, or international government and, secondarily, roles at nonprofits, policy institutions, and associations that address government challenges.

•   National network: All fellows have access to specialized RFG programming, participate in an annual gathering in Washington, D.C., and receive ongoing support for career advancement as alumni in the RFG network.

Universities as Engines of Policy Evidence

The partner universities also help governments learn what works. Through applied research, program evaluations, capstone projects, the State Department’s Diplomacy Lab, and other experiential learning opportunities, faculty and students take on questions posed by city halls, statehouses, federal agencies, and international institutions. Examples from each partner include:

•   Arizona State University: The Morrison Institute for Public Policy and its Kyl Center for Water Policy clarified what the Phoenix-area groundwater model means for urban development, work the City of Chandler credited with reinforcing confidence in Arizona’s water future.

•   The City College of New York: The Colin Powell School’s Social Mobility Lab researches the structural drivers of socioeconomic advancement. Through its Journal of Up the lab shares research-based findings to help local and national education systems expand opportunity for lower-income and immigrant communities.

•   Duke University: Family Connects, a universal newborn nurse home-visiting model developed by Duke’s Center for Child and Family Policy with a Durham nonprofit, now operates in 19 U.S. communities after a randomized trial of 936 births found 44 percent fewer child-maltreatment investigations through age two.

•   Florida International University: Through the State Department’s Diplomacy Lab, student teams at the Green School’s Gordon Institute research disinformation, cryptocurrency, foreign fighters, and trafficking laws. The institute also runs data-driven Prosecutorial Performance Indicators with 30 prosecutors’ offices nationwide.

•   George Mason University: Since 1993, the Schar School’s Center for Regional Analysis has produced economic, transportation, workforce, demographic, and housing data and analysis for the Washington, D.C., region.

•   Georgia Tech: As a State Department Diplomacy Lab partner, Georgia Tech’s faculty-led student teams answer research questions posed by Department offices and deliver policy memos and analyses.

•   Syracuse University: The Maxwell School’s X Lab uses behavioral science and randomized trials with public and nonprofit partners, including the Onondaga County Health Department, and has studied census non-response in New York State.

•   University of Denver: The Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, launched in 2017 with the Governor’s Office, gives state agencies direct access to researchers. Under a nearly $5 million grant from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, it is evaluating approximately $500 million in federal early-childhood stimulus funds.

•   University of Maryland: The School of Public Policy’s Center for Global Sustainability modeled pathways to the state’s 60 percent emissions-reduction goal for the Maryland Department of the Environment, which published the resulting Maryland’s Climate Pathway report alongside its 2031 greenhouse gas reduction plan.

•   University of Minnesota: Humphrey School students complete 30+ applied capstone projects a year for clients including the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

RFG’s partner criteria call for structured experiential learning, including internships and applied policy projects, so fellows gain hands-on experience across levels of government and enter public service prepared to connect research and policy.

University Coalition

Alongside the partner announcement, RFG is launching a University Leadership Council of graduate school deans and senior leaders. The Council will advise RFG on priority municipal, state, federal, international, and nonprofit pathways for fellows; programming and networks that add value across the national model; and strategies to expand evidence-informed research and applied learning. The Council convenes for the first time on November 20 at the 2026 RFG Annual Summit in Washington, D.C.

RFG Fellowship Partner Universities and Graduate Schools

University	Graduate School(s)
Arizona State University (AZ)	Thunderbird School of Global Management; Rob Walton College of Global Futures; Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions
City University of New York, The City College of New York (NY)	Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership
Duke University (NC)	Sanford School of Public Policy
Florida International University (FL)	Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs
George Mason University (VA)	Schar School of Policy and Government
Georgia Institute of Technology (GA)	Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
Syracuse University (NY)	Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
University of Denver (CO)	Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs
University of Maryland (MD)	School of Public Policy
University of Minnesota (MN)	Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Partner schools are now recruiting applicants for their graduate programs starting in fall 2027, from which the initial class of RFG Fellows under the new national model will be selected. Prospective applicants can learn more about the RFG Fellowship and find links to each partner university and the graduate schools in the Partner University section of the foundation website. [link to University page]