When the National Organization on Disability was founded in 1982, it was the first organization in the United States to represent every person with a disability, regardless of particular needs or circumstances. To have a disability is to belong to a large extended community — one out of every four Americans fits the description — that includes immense diversity, but also common threads of shared experience. Our mission has always been to break down the barriers that fence people off from the wider community. Today, we focus the whole of our energy on eliminating the most wasteful and isolating of all those barriers: the artificial gulf that keeps tens of millions of people out of the productive workforce.
We envision a world where all people with disabilities enjoy full opportunity for employment, enterprise and earnings, and employers know how to make the most of our talents.