Over the past year, the Frank Foundation entered a new stage of growth.
What began as a collection of distinct education initiatives is becoming a connected portfolio of global programs, united under one flagship brand, one mission, and a shared set of values.
Across health sciences, public health, humanitarian response, addiction training, and primary education, the Foundation strengthened its infrastructure, expanded its partnerships, increased its educational reach, and developed more sustainable models for the future.
Watch the video below for a look back at the Foundation’s year of growth, integration, and global impact.
The Foundation in Numbers
The Foundation is becoming more than a collection of programs. It is becoming a connected system of people, knowledge, partnerships, technology, and shared values.
One Foundation, One Mission
A defining milestone was the repositioning of the Frank Foundation as the flagship brand for its full portfolio.
The Foundation launched its own website for the first time and introduced a clearer organizational structure, helping learners, partners, funders, and collaborators understand how each program contributes to the same mission:
To improve the health of humanity and the planet through initiatives that democratize education.
That mission is supported by seven shared values:
The Foundation also strengthened the systems supporting its programs.
A cybersecurity team was established, new digital security practices were introduced, and program websites were organized within a shared WordPress
Multisite ecosystem.
These changes created a stronger foundation for managing, protecting, and scaling the organization’s digital resources.
NextGenU Highlights
NextGenU also achieved full program sustainability during its first independent fiscal year.
Major developments included a five-year licensing agreement with the University of Texas Medical Branch, continued revenue through the Clinical Alliance, and delivery of a nurse-training contract for Jacaranda Health.
Nursing remained a major area of expansion. Five new learning products were introduced, while development continued toward completing a full Bachelor of Science in Nursing curriculum.
The program also launched a free MCAT preparation initiative and expanded the use of educational tools, including patient simulations, branching cases, study aids, question banks, tutor-bots, and AI-supported learning companions.
Global Health Learning Center: A Global Resource Preserved
The Global Health Learning Center faced an uncertain future before the Frank Foundation stepped in to secure its future.
Originally developed by Johns Hopkins University in partnership with USAID, the platform served over 400,000 members but required extensive modernization.
The Frank Foundation intervened, assumed stewardship, and began restoring GHLC as a permanent global education resource.
GHLC Highlights
The experience of restoring GHLC also strengthened the Foundation’s service capacity and contributed to the creation of NGU Solutions, a dedicated identity for its instructional design, curriculum development, educational technology, and AI-supported services.
ATHP: Training, Networks, and Advocacy
Addiction Training for Health Professionals continued delivering free, certificate-based education while expanding its role in regional training, professional collaboration, and public health advocacy.
Two new courses were launched:
- Tobacco Industry Interference
- Tobacco and Nicotine Use Cessation and Treatment for Health Professionals
The program also developed interactive case-study activities for family medicine and mental health and renewed its NAADAC continuing education certification.
Network Growth
Through a Vital Strategies-supported initiative, ATHP helped launch ReCeTa Colombia, a national network connecting healthcare professionals, universities, government, scientific societies, and civil society.
By the end of the project period, ReCeTa had:
The Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals, or NATTI, also grew to 80 members across 14 countries.
Its webinars generated 1,138 registrations, engaged 186 institutions, and reached participants from 34 countries.
Public Health U: Growth and Transition
Public Health U continued supporting learners pursuing advanced education in public health, health professions education, and global health.
PHU Highlights
PHU strengthened its learning materials with summaries, study notes, flashcards, introductory videos, and microlearning activities.
The program also continued collaborations with the University of the Incarnate Word, Ponce Health Sciences University, the Christian Academy of African Physicians, and the World Federation of Public Health Associations.
Following the phase-out of its partnership with EUCLID, PHU is now supporting currently enrolled students while pursuing new institutional pathways for future degree programs.
More than 30 PHU students have already earned degrees through the EUCLID partnership.
Humanitarian U: Education for Emergency Response
Humanitarian U deepened its collaboration with the World Health Organization through work focused on emergency preparedness, community health workers, incident management, and emergency-ready primary healthcare.
A major achievement was the development of the Community Health Worker Emergency Competency Framework and its related operational guidance.
HU also created the eight-module Community Protection for Outbreak Readiness and Response course.
During an Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the team produced:
81 learning products in fewer than three weeks.
These materials supported the rapid training of community health workers responding to an urgent public health threat.
Humanitarian U also contributed to WHO’s Emergency-Ready Primary Health Care Framework and Operational Guide, helping translate global policy and technical standards into practical tools for emergency preparedness and response
STEPS: Expanding Education Across Languages and Borders
STEPS continued expanding access to high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in primary schools.
Two grants supported the program’s next phase of growth:
- A new 12-month GPE KIX contract for the Union of Comoros
- A continuation grant supporting work in Cameroon and Benin
In Cameroon, STEPS mathematics textbooks are now being used across primary schools within the Cameroon Baptist Convention, representing the program’s largest move toward classroom-scale implementation.
STEPS also advanced several educational technology projects:
- The first proof of concept for an Intelligent Textbook Machine
- Literacy applications developed with Alpha Tiles
- An AI translation tool for Comorian languages
- An expanded mathematics instructional video library
- Teacher professional development resources
- New digital classroom materials
These tools are intended to help educators create, translate, adapt, and deliver locally relevant learning resources in low-resource and multilingual environments.
Building the Future Together
Across the Foundation, the year brought new websites, courses, platforms, contracts, grants, partnerships, and technologies.
But the clearest measure of progress is found in the people these programs serve.
It is found in learners accessing education without tuition. It is found in nurses preparing for stronger clinical practice, health professionals applying evidence-based knowledge, and public health students continuing their studies without leaving their communities.
It is found in community health workers preparing for outbreaks, teachers receiving better classroom resources, and children learning through materials designed for their language and context.
Each Frank Foundation program follows a different pathway.
Together, they are building a stronger, more sustainable, and more connected system for expanding access to education worldwide.