The Give Back Yoga Foundation

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The Give Back Yoga Foundation

Yoga can change a life. The Give Back Yoga Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in the United States and a registered charity in the United Kingdom.

We help yoga teachers, health workers, and charitable organizations bring to individuals facing illness, hardship, and inequality. Over the past thirteen years, we have offered yoga to people in prisons, hospitals, and mental health centers. We have trained over ten thousand yoga teachers and healthcare workers, awarded more than $400,000 (USD) in grants, and dist

ributed more than 20,000 mats to kickstart programs in communities where there are barriers to access healthcare. OUR MISSION
Our mission is to bring the therapeutic benefits of yoga to people facing illness and hardship. We help yoga teachers, healthcare workers, and charitable organizations offer yoga to people facing addiction, cancer, eating disorders, incarceration, and post-traumatic stress. We also work with community partners to increase access to yoga for populations that face systemic bias and prejudice. HOW WE WORK
We support a broad spectrum of the yoga service movement; from teachers leading classes in their local communities, to seedling yoga service projects, to established not-for-profit organizations. Our strategy includes three key initiatives:

START-UP SUPPLIES
We send free yoga mats to yoga teachers and healthcare workers to lead not-for-profit yoga projects in their local communities. SMALL GRANTS
We provide funding to yoga teachers and small organizations to kickstart not-for-profit yoga projects. RESEARCH & EDUCATION
We work in collaboration with academic institutions to conduct and disseminate research on the benefits of yoga for individuals facing illness and hardship.

08/23/2026

"Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts." — Swami Sivananda

An itemized budget line. A scanned certification. A carefully worded project description. None of it feels glamorous, but it's exactly this kind of care that makes an application stand out. Tomorrow we're breaking down everything you'll need for our 2026 Yoga Service Grant — applications open September 1. 📋

08/21/2026

Thinking about applying for a Yoga Service Grant? Here's what we hear most from yoga teachers and therapists as the window gets close.

Swipe through for answers on eligibility, credentials, funding, and what to prepare now.

Applications open September 1 and run through September 30. Sign up for free prep tips: https://mailchi.mp/givebackyoga/ysg-2026-signup-form

08/17/2026

Rob Schware met Chelsea Roff at the very first Yoga Service Conference, hosted by Omega Institute. Chelsea had a fire in her belly — a vision for a nonprofit that would put yoga into eating disorder recovery, not as a wellness add-on, but as a real, study-backed intervention. Rob made her a deal, and showed up when she delivered. It was the start of a friendship forged over yoga and grit — one that would go on to change thousands of lives.

A year later, Chelsea quit her job and set out to raise $50,000 to launch that nonprofit under Give Back Yoga Foundation. After 44 days, she'd only raised $19,000 — so she climbed onto a rooftop in Santa Monica, unrolled her mat, and vowed to stay until she'd raised the rest. Five days later, hit its goal, and Eat Breathe Thrive was born.

Today, Eat Breathe Thrive is its own independent, flourishing global nonprofit — and Chelsea now sits on Give Back Yoga Foundation's Board. See the full impact numbers in the carousel.

This is what we mean by an "extraordinary" yoga service project: it filled a real gap, and it multiplied.

Curious what yoga service work could look like for you? Our "How Can I Serve?" video series is on our YouTube channel. And sign up here to get updates on how to apply for our 2026 Yoga Service Grant, opening September 1: https://mailchi.mp/givebackyoga/ysg-2026-signup-form 🌱

Eat Breathe Thrive

08/16/2026

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" — Mary Oliver

Some people answer that question by building something that outlasts them. Tomorrow, we're sharing the story of one project that did exactly that — proof of what's possible when a real gap gets filled, and the work is built to multiply. 🌿

08/13/2026

Applications for the 2026 Yoga Service Grant open September 1.

This year's application is more focused: fewer narrative questions, clear word limits, fixed funding tiers, and a new accepted credential (AYC Certified Yoga Teacher).

Want tips to prepare before the window opens?

Sign up here: https://mailchi.mp/givebackyoga/ysg-2026-signup-form

08/10/2026

Meet Char Grossman, founder of YogaReach®LLC and a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT) and educational psychologist based in Pepper Pike, Ohio.

Four days a week, Char and her team of 12 instructors run adaptive therapeutic yoga classes for people living with Parkinson's — reaching 600–800 people every month. Each pose is taught 3–4 different ways, so every client can find the version that works for their body that day.

Thanks to mats donated through , Char's program has what it needs to keep welcoming new clients. This is the same spirit of service we look for across all of our grant programs — steady, dedicated work that meets people exactly where they are. 🙏

Follow Char's work: YogaReach | yoga-reach.org

08/09/2026

"Nothing will work unless you do." — Maya Angelou

If you've been meaning to gather your credentials or start sketching out a budget for your Yoga Service Grant application, consider this your nudge. The work you're already doing matters — now's the time to start documenting it. Applications open September 1. 💪

08/04/2026

Mat Grant Monday: meet Kelly Wulf of Comeback Yoga (facebook.com/comebackyoga). 🧡

Kelly has spent nine years building Comeback Yoga into a program that reaches roughly 20,000 members of the military community every year, veterans, active duty service members, and their families, offering free, trauma-informed yoga at the VA, on military installations, and in classes led largely by veterans themselves.

New mats from this grant went to three classes, including Golden Warriors, a class serving an older population where comfort and support really matter. As one teacher put it: "The yoga mats give a safe space for the veteran students to reacquaint with their bodies."

Mats provided by Gaiam through Give Back Yoga Foundation.

08/03/2026

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life." — Swami Vivekananda

Most of the extraordinary yoga service projects we fund aren't new ideas — they're work someone has already devoted themselves to, often for years. As National Wellness Month begins, this feels like the right quote for anyone already deep in that kind of focus. Our 2026 Yoga Service Grant applications open September 1 — a good time to start pulling together what you'll need to tell your project's story. 🌱

07/29/2026

Practice Notes | It Was Never About the Mat ✨

Students often arrive looking for something the pose is supposed to deliver: flexibility, strength, a quiet mind.
But the freedom they're actually looking for rarely comes from the shape. It comes from the breath underneath it, the one thing available to every student regardless of ability, injury, age, or experience.

A held breath is not free. A breath moving fully through the body is. That's true whether someone is in a full expression of a pose or lying still in savasana.

This is why breath-first teaching matters so much in yoga service: it means freedom is available to every single person in the room, no exceptions, no modifications required.

💬 How much of your class is breath-led versus pose-led? Would your students say the same?

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Boulder, CO

Website

http://givebackyoga.org/

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