Best Buddies: Empowering People With IDD

Founded in 1989 by Anthony K. Shriver, Best Buddies is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) through one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, and leadership development. Starting as a single chapter, Best Buddies now has nearly 1,500 middle school, high school, and college chapters around the globe, with its programs positively impacting almost 700,000 individuals with and without disabilities in the United States and 50 countries worldwide.

A lack of social skills, and not an inadequacy to perform their job, is usually the reason why people with IDD are unable to secure or maintain employment. Best Buddies provides the opportunities, training, and tools people with IDD need to reach their potential. When they participate in the organization's programs, people with IDD are able to live independently, have rewarding jobs, make lifelong friends, and even become inspirational leaders. Best Buddies offers eight programs, including Best Buddies Citizens, Best Buddies Jobs, and e-Buddies. Best Buddies Citizens connects people with IDD to individuals in the civic and corporate communities, giving them access to friends, love, and support. Best Buddies Jobs provides ongoing employment assistance and training so they can work alongside others. Meanwhile, e-Buddies is an email pen pal program that lets people with IDD make new friends online, as well as learn social, literacy, and computer skills.

Despite Best Buddies' achievements over the years, there are still many areas in America and the world where people with IDD have yet to become widely accepted into mainstream society. Thus, Best Buddies created its 2020 initiative in 2011, aiming to establish its presence in all 50 states and 100 countries, touch the lives 3 million people with and without IDD across the globe, increase its number of school chapters to 2,500, and become a household name by the end of 2020.