Golisano Foundation Awards $25 Million to Special Olympics
Special Olympics has announced a $25 million gift from the Golisano Foundation to expand the organization's health services for people with intellectual disabilities.
The largest single gift in Special Olympics' 47-year history — and the largest gift given by the foundation to date — will be used to expand the Special Olympics Healthy Communities initiative to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities have access to health care in their communities on a year-round basis. Launched in 2012 with a $12 million gift from the Golisano Foundation, the initiative has supported system-wide changes in eight countries and six U.S. states by creating continuing education programs, updating dental school curricula, enhancing government health services and insurance coverage, and training healthcare volunteers. With the latest gift, Special Olympics aims to implement the Healthy Communities model in a hundred communities by 2020.
According to Special Olympics, people with intellectual disabilities are among the largest and most medically underserved disability groups in the world, with millions experiencing dramatically higher rates of preventable disease, chronic pain and suffering, and premature death compared with other populations.
"Special Olympics has gained valuable experience and demonstrated success during the past three years with the launch of Healthy Communities," said Golisano Foundation director Ann Costello. "Not only did Special Olympics screen more athletes and train more clinicians, it leveraged additional resources; engaged new global partners, health systems, and universities; increased access to community-based healthcare services; and empowered individuals and families through education and grassroots support. Going forward we hope to see Healthy Communities move to a transformative scale — inclusive health care for all."
