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Readers Digest Partners for Sight Foundation and NEC Foundation of America: Furthering Inclusion of icouldbe.org

Since 2000, icouldbe.org has brought online mentoring to more than 10,000 students at scores of America’s failing schools, in Native American Reservations and to orphaned students in East Africa. Recognizing that technology is an equalizer, icouldbe.org has been adapting its existing technology to accommodate teenagers with disabilities to provide them with many opportunities to assert and fully develop their potential – personally, academically and professionally. The first phase will include working with the blind and visually impaired community to customize our existing online platform to work with screen readers and other assistive technologies.

Thanks to the visionary leadership at Readers Digest Partners for Sight Foundation and the NEC Foundation of America, icouldbe.org will launch its Inclusion Program and become accessible to students who are blind or visually impaired in the 2008 – 2009 school year. “Reader’s Digest Partners for Sight Foundation is proud to be able to provide funding to help make the extraordinary mentoring services of icouldbe.org accessible to blind and visually impaired students. We applaud the efforts of Kate Schrauth and the icouldbe.org team in this area,” said Susan Olivo, vice president and general manager of Reader’s Digest Partners for Sight Foundation.

Read the news release.

Funding for Research that Supports Social Change

The Sociological Initiatives Foundation provides grants of $5,000 to $15,000 to support research that supports social change. The Foundation specifically supports research that focuses on:

• Clear social policy objectives
• Institutional and educational practices
• Legislative and regulatory changes
• Organizing previously unorganized groups
• Building collective community capacity and/or power (such as expanding membership base)
• Linguistic issues, such as literacy, language maintenance and expansion, multilingualism and its implications, and their possible intersection with social and policy issues.

The Foundation supports projects that address institutional rather than individual or behavioral change and/or research and initiatives that provide insight into sociological and linguistic issues that may be useful to specific groups and or communities. It supports projects that have an explicit research design and a concrete connection to public or community impact.

The research should ideally build an organization or constituency's potential to expand public knowledge, impact policy, and create social change. Complete guidelines and on-line concept application for the August 15, 2008, deadline are available at http://comm-org.wisc.edu/sif. Contact Prentice Zinn at pzinn@grantsmanagement.com or 617-426-7080, x307.

New Resources

Visit our Resources page for new media resources.

Including Samuel Featured in Business Week

Anne Newman writes the Working Parents blog for Business Week magazine. After viewing Including Samuel, filmed and narrated by Samuel’s father and professional documentarian, Dan Habib, Newman asked in her May 18 Working Parents blog: “So readers, how do you feel about “inclusion” — is it the next civil rights issue?”

Exceptional Parent has praised the film: "Including Samuel is a must-see for ... anyone who wants and/or needs and in-depth look into the concept, current practice and real-life experience of inclusion and integration for those with disabilities." Douglas Biklen, dean, School of Education, Syracuse University, wrote, "This film will be an incredible resource for people who teach courses about inclusion, who offer workshops about inclusion, and who just want to learn about inclusion. It will also be very reassuring for parents."

More Information

For a constantly updated schedule of public screenings, go to www.includingsamuel.com/screenings. The DVD is available from the Web site, www.includingsamuel.com, and the educational/ institutional package includes a 24-page, full-color viewers' guide written by Cheryl M. Jorgensen, Ph.D., and Mary Schuh, Ph.D., of the UNH Institute on Disability, along with Dan Habib.

Digital Accessibility Trend Analysis (DATA) Launched

Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville PC (PPSV), led by disability law experts John D. Kemp and Elisabeth Doyle, are launching Digital Accessibility Trend Analysis (DATA). DATA is a subscription service available to business, government and individuals who need the latest in accessibility law to maintain their competitive edge.

The momentum of accessibility law is growing at breathtaking speed, and universal accessibility is “an idea whose time has come.” DATA feeds the needs of industry to monitor web accessibility and digital technology in light of growing legal realities and the pervasiveness of internet reliance in the areas of education, commerce, employment, and social networking. Read the announcement for more information.

Council on Foundations: Grantmakers Discuss Diversity, Disability

Speaking at a plenary on diversity at the annual Council on Foundations conference last week, Dr. I. King Jordan, a member of the board of the Theodore R. and Vivian M. Johnson Scholarship Foundation in West Palm Beach, Fla. and adviser to the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF) in Arlington, Va., admonished his fellow grantmakers to, “be inclusive in our definition of diversity,” by ensuring that people with disabilities are included in the conversation. He illustrated the point by saying, “I feel like I’m standing out like a sore thumb at this conference. I’m the only deaf person in the whole conference.”

Diversity was among the top focus areas of this year’s conference, which brought together some 3,000 foundation, nonprofit, corporate and government leaders. The Council’s Committee on Inclusiveness designed the plenary session, along with a host of concurrent sessions to raise awareness of the need to ensure that diversity is being addressed by the philanthropic community, and that the definition of diversity includes people with disabilities.

In a concurrent session on Grantmaker Effectiveness, Kim Hutchinson, executive director with the Disability Funders Network (DFN) — an affinity group of grantmakers which promotes giving to the disability sector — challenged the room full of foundation leaders to look at their giving through a disability lens. Kim reported that DFN is partnering with the Cincinnati-based Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation to expand an initiative to encourage grantmakers around the country to conduct an INclusion INventory® each time a capital grant is being considered for funding. The inventory will help ensure that the proposed facility and the nonprofit’s program are inclusive and welcoming of people with disabilities. Read the complete press release.

Peter V. Berns Named Executive Director of The Arc Of the United States

Peter V. Berns, a nationally recognized nonprofit sector leader and public interest lawyer, has been named executive director of The Arc of the United States, the world’s largest community based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Currently executive director of the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, Berns will assume his duties full time on July 7, 2008.

In his 16 years at Maryland Nonprofits, he built the association from a start-up to a position of prominence in the nonprofit community, nationally, with more than 1,700 members of all sizes, all sectors and from all regions of the state. In addition, he has served as chief executive officer of the Standards for Excellence Institute since its inception in 2004. Read the full press release.

New Web Community Brings Together Parents of Visually Impaired Children

The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and the National Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments (NAPVI) has launched FamilyConnect, www.familyconnect.org, an online, multimedia community for parents and guardians of children with visual impairments. The site will help these families connect and give busy parents, grandparents and other caretakers a place to find comprehensive resources and support 24 hours a day. Read the complete press release for more information.

MEAF Honors Boys & Girls Clubs Leader with Inclusion Champion Award

Marvin B. Laster, director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) Diversity Program, was named the first Inclusion Champion by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF). Laster received the inaugural MEAF Inclusion Champion Award at the annual national conference of the inclusion training organization, Kids Included Together (KIT).

The award, which includes a trophy and a $1000 contribution to the recipient’s organization, was established by MEAF to honor individuals who have made measurable and sustainable impact in promoting the inclusion of youth with disabilities. Read the full press release and more about the award.

Paths to Inclusion Promotes Full Participation of Youth with Disabilities in Society

Paths to Inclusion debuted April 3 at the national conference of the organization Kids Included Together (KIT) in San Diego. Published by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF), Paths to Inclusion is a resource guide to help youth-serving organizations integrate youth with disabilities into their regular programs.

The guide was developed by an Inclusion Task Force organized by MEAF, which includes leaders of national and community-based organizations that serve youth and people with disabilities, along with representatives of universities, foundations and government agencies.

Read the press release and download the publication. (The publication is also featured as part of Disability Funders Network's Inclusion Toolkit on the Inclusion section of this site.)

International Coalition Launches Groundbreaking Disability Rights Fund

The Open Society Institute, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, and an anonymous donor announced on March 31 a groundbreaking collaborative to support the human rights for people with disabilities.

Launched on the first anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), the Disability Rights Fund will provide financial support for human rights advocacy in the developing world and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union. The broad objective of the fund will be to empower disabled persons organizations around the world to effectively implement and monitor the CPRD. Read the press release.

Integrated Process Solutions Launched

DFN Board Member Rich Donovan has announced the launch of Integrated Process Solutions LLC, www.returnondisability.com. Integrated Process Solutions LLC is a strategic consulting firm that works with large corporations and governments to help them understand their position in the business/disability space and to allocate capital profitably. Focusing on seven interfaces with client firms, Integrated Process Solutions LLC will distill them to one performance measure: Return on Disability™.

In support of Integrated Process Solutions LLC, Rich Donovan also launched an ‘Electronic White Paper’, addressing a new issue every Monday in the business/disability space. This forum is meant to provoke discussion, and seed the roots of change. This week will start with first principles, addressing a critical component of success in any part of the business world; Quality. The ‘Electronic White Paper’ can be found at http://returnondisability.blogspot.com/. Read the press release.