Expanding Opportunity: Meet FDD’s Spring 2026 Program Grant Partners

What does it look like when a community truly invests in its most marginalized members? It looks like a child with a developmental disability learning to navigate the world with confidence. It looks like a family caregiver is finally getting the support they’ve needed. It looks like a teenager experiencing the thrill of adaptive surfing for the first time, or a family sharing a night at the theatre together, maybe for the very first time.

This spring, FDD is proud to announce $75,800 in Program Grant funding awarded to six (6) exceptional community organizations across San Diego and Imperial Counties. These partnerships reflect our deepest belief: that strategic, targeted philanthropy creates meaningful, lasting change for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and the families who love them.

As we celebrate 40 years of impact, we’re honored to introduce our newest cohort of program partners, each one addressing a critical gap with creativity, compassion, and community.

Building Safety, Confidence, and Independence

Amanda’s Adaptive Martial Arts — $15,000

Every child deserves the skills to navigate the world safely and confidently. For children with I/DD, access to that kind of training has often been limited by cost, availability, or programs that weren’t designed to include them.

Amanda’s Adaptive Martial Arts (AAMA) is closing that gap with a new Adaptive Safety and Life Skills pilot program. FDD funding will provide full scholarships for more than 40 students, removing financial barriers so that no family must choose between safety training and their next utility bill. 

Community Impact: Participants gain practical safety knowledge, confidence, and the kind of independence that ripples forward into every part of their lives.

Creating Inclusive Community Experiences

Hope on the Hard Road — $14,000

For many individuals with I/DD and their families, participating in everyday community events can feel out of reach, not because of a lack of desire, but because the environment wasn’t designed with them in mind.

Hope on the Hard Road is changing that. With FDD support, this organization is designing and implementing sensory-friendly community events; spaces where individuals with I/DD and their families can show up, connect, and belong. No barriers. No apologies. Just community.

Community Impact: These experiences reduce isolation, strengthen social connections, and create opportunities for families to participate fully in community life.

Expanding Access to the Arts

The Old Globe Theatre — $10,000

The magic of live theatre shouldn’t be reserved for some. Yet for families with sensory-sensitive members, a traditional performance can be overwhelming with bright lights, sudden sounds, and crowded spaces. The result? Exclusion disguised as just the way things are.

The Old Globe Theatre is pushing back on that reality. With FDD support, they’re adapting their beloved production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas to be sensory-friendly, creating an experience where families who are often shut out can step in and share something truly special.

Community Impact: Families who are often excluded from traditional performances can participate in shared cultural experiences, expanding access to the arts and fostering a sense of belonging.

Advancing Inclusive Recreation

Disabled Services Advisory Council (San Diego Parks and Recreation Department) — $13,500

There is something transformative about catching a wave. For individuals with disabilities, adaptive surfing isn’t just recreation; it’s increased confidence, physical activity, and empowerment.

Disabled Services Advisory Council, in partnership with San Diego Parks & Rec, is bringing back Camp Wet and Wild, with FDD funding supporting staffing, program delivery, and accessibility accommodations to ensure every participant can engage safely and meaningfully.

Community Impact: Participants leave with more than great memories; they gain increased confidence, physical vitality, and a deep sense of empowerment through the simple, powerful truth that adventure is for everyone.

Supporting Caregivers When It Matters Most

The Shine Project Foundation — $15,000

Behind every individual with I/DD is often a caregiver who is stretched thin, navigating complex systems, managing daily demands, and doing it largely without a roadmap. The Shine Project Foundation knows this reality firsthand, and their new Pathway of Support program is built to meet families exactly where they are.

FDD funding supports a direct services consultant and essential caregiver resources, immediate, flexible assistance for the urgent, often unmet needs caregivers face every day.

Community Impact: When we stabilize families, we strengthen the entire support system surrounding individuals with I/DD. That ripple effect is exactly what sustainable impact looks like.

 

Expanding Access Through Technology and Self-Advocacy

The Self-Determination Tech Alliance — $8,300

Navigating California’s Regional Center system can be complex, even for those who’ve been doing it for years. For families new to the process or those facing language barriers, the complexity can feel insurmountable. Critical services may go unclaimed. Families may fall through the cracks.

The Self-Determination Tech Alliance is tackling that problem head-on with the Disability

Access Navigator (DAN) is a free, bilingual digital tool that helps individuals and families navigate the system. FDD funding supports the technology infrastructure needed to keep DAN free, accessible, and scalable as a public resource.

Community Impact: Knowledge is power. When families understand their options, they can advocate for themselves, and that changes everything. Families gain clearer pathways to services, a greater understanding of complex systems, and a stronger ability to advocate for themselves, thereby removing barriers that often limit access to care and support.

40 Years of Impact — and the Work Continues

Across six organizations, $75,800 in Program Grant funding is doing what the Foundation does best: filling gaps, amplifying community-driven solutions, and creating conditions where everyone can thrive.

This cohort represents a strategic investment across five pillars — community engagement and social inclusion, education and lifelong learning, family and caregiver support, health and wellness, and innovation. But these aren't just programs. They are pathways to belonging, confidence, and independence. They are proof that when a community chooses to invest in equity and access, lives change.

As FDD marks 40 years of impact, partnerships like these remind us why this work matters — and what becomes possible when we stop waiting for someday.

Help us build the next 40 years.

If this work moves you, consider leaving a legacy gift to the Foundation for Developmental Disabilities. A planned gift is one of the most powerful ways to ensure that opportunity, dignity, and inclusion endure for generations to come. Learn more about FDD Legacy Giving

Together, we are building a more inclusive future — one program, one partnership, one opportunity at a time. Forty years and we're just getting started.

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