Projects

In 2026, the foundation will be shifting its focus on community screenings of The Power of Small. But before that change, we wrapped up more than a year of film festival screenings with two final screenings in Dunedin, Florida, and Durango, Colorado.

• In January, at the Dunedin International Film Festival, our film earned two awards – Best Editing for a Documentary presented to Tyler Short and Best Documentary for a Mid-Length Film. TerrI Bullock was also joined by T.C. and Kristen Johnstone for a reception and panel discussion on “The Transformative Power of Kindness and Happiness”. The panel explored this topic with the filmmakers and subjects from The Power of Small and The Happiness Experiment.
• In March, we concluded our festival run with two screenings of The Power of Small with a theater full of audience members. We also hosted a reception and panel discussion exploring “The Transformative Power of Kindness and Hospitality” with the filmmakers and subjects from our film and ESL: More Than a Language. We were joined by the Executive Director of The Durango Adult Learning Center which provides ESL classes and other supportive services for immigrant communities in SW Colorado.

Now that we have completed our film festival run, The Power of Small is available for individuals to stream for $6. Nonprofits and local organizations are also welcome to license the film for $75 to host a community screening.

Learn more about individual and community screenings of The Power of Small

Over 160 participants representing dozens of kindness organizations from around the globe gathered for the first ever global k20 Kindness Summit.

The k20 is a transformative effort to unify and amplify global kindness efforts, establishing a structured, high-impact infrastructure similar to how the G20 shapes economic policy. The inaugural k20 Summit represented a landmark opportunity to catalyze this movement. Influential contributors from academia, business, government, and civil society were hosted by The ROCK Center at Florida Gulf Coast University (Roots of Compassion and Kindness) to explore how kindness can drive systemic change. This two-day event blended high-level strategic discussions with engaging public sessions and immersive hands-on experiences.

The closing event for the summit included a moving screening of The Power of Small followed by a panel discussion with both Terri Bullock and Will Stoller-Lee. The foundation provided a grant to the ROCK Center for their “Rock of Ages” intergenerational service-learning project with FGCU students and older adults in the Ft Myers area. We were honored to present Rock of Ages with our newest Lens of Hope Films award for a new documentary film project that will be released this fall to help spread the story of this work.

Watch for more about k20 and learn more about the Rock Center here.

One of the key aspects of the impact campaign for The Power of Small was a Kindness Grant Initiative demonstrating that small acts of kindness can have an outsized impact.

L.A. Wildfire Relief. Our initiative started with ten $1,000 microgrants that were donated to organizations that were involved in the relief efforts after the wildfires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. These grants were donated to a diverse group of grassroots community organizations and local faith communities who were providing immediate relief and acts of hospitality and kindness for individuals and families impacted by these devastating wildfires.

Read more about these L.A. Wildire grants

Weekly Kindness Grants. At the end of February, the foundation began awarding a $1000 microgrant each week to organizations and individuals who presented us with projects to creatively spread kindness in their communities. We received more than 500 applications, engaged a team of more than 25 volunteers who reviewed these applications and recommended deserving recipients, and the foundation awarded more than 45 grants by the end of November 2025.

The TDB Family Foundation believes that small acts of kindness can be a powerful force for change. The inspiring stories about these creative ideas for kindness and their amazing ripple effects can be found here:

Read Kindness Stories

On Sunday, November 9, at Colorado College, YDA presented the World Premiere of 13 new films produced by the high school students of the Class of 2025. These films explored themes of immigration and cultural diversity, shared family stories that spanned generations, and encouraged open conversations on topics ranging from OCD to teenage menstruation. Following the screening, our foundation hosted a reception that brought together student filmmakers, their families, donors, and community leaders to celebrate the students’ work and impact. The foundation also provided a matching gift opportunity that helped to raise more than $5000 in support of YDA’s programs.

Learn more about Youth Documentary Academy

This was the second annual award presented by the foundation to both the filmmaker and the nonprofit work highlighted in the film. The film also won the coveted Audience Award: Documentary Film. The 17% tells the story of Collette Devitto, a young entrepreneur with Down syndrome who used the rejection she experienced with every job she applied for as motivation to start her own baking company and hire 15 other people with neurological disabilities. Collettey’s Cookies is changing the world – one cookie at a time.

Learn more about The 17% film

Learn more about Collettey’s Cookies

In 2025, the foundation partnered with our 2024 Lens of Hope award recipient, Cycling Without Age, on the film’s impact campaign

• We provided a grant to create an online toolkit to assist individuals who want to know what it takes to start a local CWA chapter.
• The foundation covered the travel expenses for three of the filmmakers to attend the National Bike Summit, March 11-13, 2025, in Washington DC. A screening of the film was followed by visits to Capitol Hill so conference attendees could lobby their elected officials.
• In April, we hosted several events in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, CO, where we participated in regularly scheduled trishaw rides, raised awareness about CWA, recruited more volunteer pilots, and raised over $3000 for these two Colorado chapters.
• In July, the foundation partnered with the filmmakers and the Santa Barbara CWA chapter to host a series of events in the Bay Area to promote Cycling Without Age. This included a free outdoor screening of the film along with trishaw rides in downtown Redwood City as part of the opening night program for the 2025 BraveMaker Film Fest. The next day we hosted rides from the Atherton Library to a nearby park to introduce this work to key stakeholders and local residents in the area.

For 25 years, Peak Education has been empowering youth and driving meaningful changes for educational opportunities in Colorado Springs. We have joined other strategic funders to launch a new Youth Health Ambassador Program. Led by an experienced healthcare professional, this program will provide wellness education and mental health resources for Peak Ed youth and their families and will create a youth ambassador program to help high school students earn college credits and explore career opportunities in the healthcare field.

Learn more about Peak Education

Our short film about kindness, directed by T.C. Johnstone and produced by Kristen Johnstone, had its world premiere at the Sherman Oaks Film Festival. We were honored to receive the Grand Jury Prize for Best Featurette Documentary.

Learn more about The Power of Small film

TDB Family Foundation provided funding to support a Burn A Light Productions
promotional video for Heal Ukraine Trauma. The concise and powerful short video shares the organization’s mission statement, its purpose, and its importance to assist their strategic needs.