SEATTLE – OCT. 1, 2026 – Allen Family Philanthropies and Fund for Science and Technology announced a $9.5 million crisis funding package for nine organizations responding to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Grounded in local, community-based response and health interventions, the funding recognizes that trust, diagnostics, and vaccines are all critical to containing the virus. The combined grants from Allen Family Philanthropies and Fund for Science and Technology – the two foundations in the Paul G. Allen philanthropic ecosystem – will strengthen community engagement, humanitarian logistics, and regionally-led vaccine development and response efforts to help public health responders contain the outbreak and reach vulnerable communities.
The outbreak spreading across Eastern DRC is primarily caused by the Bundibugyo virus strain (BDBV) of Ebola, for which there is no licensed vaccine or approved specific treatment. As of late September, the World Health Organization reported more than 8,100 confirmed cases and more than 3,900 deaths, with transmission continuing across multiple provinces amid ongoing conflict and insecurity, strained health systems, and widespread misinformation.
“Containing an outbreak of any kind requires more than medicine and treatment — it also requires trust,” said Allen Family Philanthropies’ Executive Director Lara Littlefield. “People don't seek care, isolate safely, or participate in contact tracing just because someone tells them to. They do it because they understand the benefits, and they trust the people delivering those messages and health interventions. Philanthropy has a unique role to play in strengthening these local relationships and community engagement efforts, both priorities in Allen Family Philanthropies’ funding for this crisis."
The two foundations’ funding continues the Allen family’s legacy of fighting Ebola. In October 2014, Paul G. Allen committed $100 million to help combat the disease, which at the time had killed almost 5,000 people and devastated parts of West Africa.
Allen Family Philanthropies – Community Response and Trust
Funding for this cohort of seven grants totals $3,000,000. Grantees include Airlink, CARE, GRACE Gorillas, HEAL Africa, International Rescue Committee, SOFEPADI, and UNICEF. Together, these grants fund not only services, but also community outreach and a robust “trust architecture” required for containment.
Complementing clinical care and emergency operations, the package from Allen Family Philanthropies will reach the last mile of trust: community networks, women-led organizations, local media, household behavior change, rumor management, and hard-to-reach logistics. Working to address this final barrier will determine whether people seek care early, accept isolation guidance, cooperate with contact tracing, and adopt safer caregiving and burial practices.
The grant package directs 55% of funding to Congolese-led or geographically proximate organizations, while the remaining funding strengthens regional and international partners with the operational capacity and expertise to scale response efforts. The funding also provides on-the-ground partners with the flexibility to adapt their response as community needs and outbreak conditions change.
Fund for Science and Technology – Diagnostics and Vaccines
Funding in these areas totals $6,500,000. Support for CEPI will advance Phase 1 clinical trials and manufacturing of an African-developed, potential one-shot vaccine. Additional support to PATH will bolster diagnostic infrastructure and address critical bottlenecks in the evaluation and use of BDBV tests.
Together, the two Fund for Science and Technology grants address clear scientific and technical needs in existing diagnostic and vaccine development pathways, creating value beyond a single intervention through reusable preparedness capabilities. They prioritize localized, in-region efforts to ensure the response aids in curbing the current outbreak and strengthens future outbreak preparedness.
“Effective outbreak response depends on more than emergency action,” said Fund for Science and Technology’s Chief Programs Officer Marc Malandro. “Sustained impact requires investment in global and local scientific capacity. Investing in outbreak response infrastructure and capabilities strengthens preparedness, accelerates decision-making, and helps ensure that lifesaving tools like vaccines reach affected communities when and where they are needed most.”
An Integrated Approach for a New Outbreak
Recognizing today's outbreak presents a different scale and set of needs, this emergency funding reflects key lessons from previous Ebola outbreaks: containment is not only a medical problem; it is also a community trust and behavior problem.
Trusted community relationships enable earlier reporting, consent to testing, participation in research, acceptance of safe care, and eventual vaccine uptake. Timely and reliable diagnostics can make decisions about referral, isolation, contact monitoring, and burial more understandable and less arbitrary, while effective and equitably available vaccines give communities a tangible preventive benefit from engaging with the health system. “Empowering local institutions to lead detection and response efforts not only improves outcomes during public health emergencies, but also builds lasting resilience against future threats,” Malandro added.
"The global community knows how to fight Ebola clinically," Littlefield acknowledged. "But containing an outbreak that threatens millions of people depends on trust in real, local relationships that help people access accurate health information, seek proper care, and participate in behaviors that aid the response and reduce transmission."
The current outbreak has attracted significant international funding commitments for treatment, surveillance, and emergency response operations – however, there remains a substantial gap between commitments and funding received. Africa CDC has repeatedly highlighted this shortfall, citing the financial requirements for its 180-day response plan are estimated at $1.3 billion, essential funding to break the chains of transmission and prevent the crisis from worsening.
View full grant summaries below.
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Allen Family Philanthropies (AFP) Grantees:
Airlink
Airlink is a nonprofit humanitarian logistics organization that leverages the speed and reach of aviation to provide transportation and logistics services to humanitarian partners around the globe. As a force multiplier, Airlink reduces or removes transportation costs and logistical barriers so frontline organizations can operate faster in remote and infrastructure-limited settings. In the DRC and Uganda, Airlink is moving PPE, Safe and Dignified Burial kits, medical supplies, and other critical relief cargo in hard-to-reach areas.
CARE
CARE is a leading humanitarian and development organization working in more than 100 countries to fight poverty and respond to humanitarian crises. Its programs span emergency response, health, food and water security, and economic opportunity. CARE places a particular focus on women and girls, recognizing that when they have the resources and opportunities they need, they can help lift entire families and communities out of poverty. Allen Family Philanthropies’ support is helping CARE deliver a community-based Ebola response in eastern DRC and Uganda, focused on risk communication, hygiene, protection for women and girls, and outreach through trusted local partners, including women-led organizations. This focus is especially important because women and girls often serve as primary caregivers, putting them at greater risk of exposure.
GRACE Gorillas
Allen Family Philanthropies’ support for the GRACE/AFP partnership is expanding urgent Ebola prevention near GRACE and Tayna Nature Reserve while protecting the critically endangered Grauer’s gorillas in GRACE’s care. Since the outbreak began, GRACE has strengthened sanctuary biosecurity and expanded community prevention, including more than 100 handwashing stations, trusted health information, and a radio campaign, “Healthy Forests, Healthy Families, Healthy Futures,” expected to reach 15,000 listeners. The effort builds on GRACE’s longstanding relationships with remote communities that have limited access to hygiene supplies, health services, and reliable information and aims to reduce Ebola transmission risk for people and great apes by delivering prevention guidance and basic resources through trusted local channels.
HEAL Africa
HEAL Africa is a Congolese-led Christian health and community development organization headquartered in Goma, North Kivu. Its holistic model combines tertiary hospital care with community outreach, specialized training for doctors and nurses, research, and support for vulnerable populations, including displaced families, women, and children. Drawing on deep local relationships and experience responding to infectious disease outbreaks, HEAL Africa will serve as a clinical-community bridge, supporting early detection and referral, health worker preparedness, community-based surveillance, infection prevention, and trust in timely care-seeking.
International Rescue Committee
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian organization working in more than 40 countries to respond to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic well-being, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. In Butembo, North Kivu Province, the IRC will expand efforts to increase knowledge of and trust in the Ebola response through community engagement and risk communication, leading to greater adoption of appropriate prevention and care-seeking behaviors, as well as more responsive detection, reporting, and referral of suspected cases. At the same time, the IRC will continue to strengthen infection prevention and control (IPC) and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) measures in targeted health facilities.
Solidarité Féminine pour la paix et le Développement intégral (SOFEPADI)
SOFEPADI is a Congolese, women-led organization that provides medical, psychosocial, legal, and economic support to women and girls affected by conflict and crisis. SOFEPADI will lead women-led community engagement and household-level outreach in eastern DRC, reaching caregivers, survivors, and vulnerable households through trusted local relationships. Its work will support stigma reduction, survivor support, trusted communication, and behavior change.
UNICEF
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. Across 190 countries and territories, UNICEF works for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. Allen Family Philanthropies’ funding to UNICEF USA will support UNICEF’s efforts to scale community engagement, risk communication, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices, child protection, and community engagement through health workers, faith-based leaders, women’s groups, youth organizations, and volunteers. Its role is to translate public health guidance into trusted local action at scale.
Fund for Science and Technology (FFST) Grantees:
CEPI
With support from the Fund for Science and Technology, CEPI will advance a promising African-developed, potential single-dose vaccine candidate towards clinical evaluation, including manufacturing-process development, production of clinical-trial material, and a Phase 1 study, while supporting the technology transfer, quality, regulatory, and workforce systems needed for commercial-scale production on the continent. The project aims not only to support the response to the current outbreak, but also to establish an enduring platform that can serve as the basis for future African-manufactured vaccines and improve regional preparedness for future epidemics.
PATH
Under the Africa CDC and WHO-led Bundibugyo Response for Improving Global Equitable Access (BRIDGE Access) initiative, the Fund for Science and Technology is funding PATH to develop the standardized materials, testing tools, and procedures needed to develop and evaluate reliable Ebola diagnostic tests, including for Bundibugyo virus (BDBV). The project addresses critical gaps highlighted by the ongoing outbreak, where very few existing tests can detect BDBV, and the lack of common testing standards makes it difficult to consistently assess the performance of new rapid diagnostic tests.
Working with laboratory partners in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and worldwide, PATH will develop and validate these reagents and tools, support their use in African reference laboratories, and promote a common approach to evaluating Ebola diagnostic tests. The project will help improve the reliability and consistency of Ebola diagnostic testing during the current outbreak while building resources that will support faster and more effective responses to future outbreaks.
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About Allen Family Philanthropies
Founded in 1988 by Jody Allen and the late Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, Allen Family Philanthropies (formerly known as the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation) invests in communities across the Pacific Northwest and beyond to strengthen arts and culture, empower the next generation of changemakers, and support a global network of partners working to advance biodiversity and human well-being. Learn more at www.allenphilanthropies.org.
About Fund for Science and Technology
Launched in 2025, Fund for Science and Technology is a 501(c)(3) private foundation and part of the Paul G. Allen philanthropic ecosystem. Through transformational science and technology, FFST enables accelerated discovery and catalyzes progress for people and planet across its three focus areas of bioscience, the environment, and AI-for-good. In addition, the foundation funds the Allen Institute and Ai2, the Allen Institute for AI. Learn more at www.ff-st.org.