David: Glad to be with you, Spiffy! Special Olympics empowers individuals with intellectual disabilities to become fully contributing members of their communities and nations. We use the transformative power of sport to break down barriers of exclusion and replace them with opportunity, solidarity, and a common understanding of our shared humanity that the world desperately needs. We amplify the voices of individuals most on the margins of their communities—persons with intellectual disabilities—to highlight their talents, skills, and key contributions to the global community. Special Olympics believes that everyone has inherent gifts and abilities, and it puts its energies into building inclusive communities through the convening power of sport.
Kely: Glad to be with you, Spiffy! The personal challenge for me is always that there is so much need in the world that it is difficult to not be able to help everyone. Raising money is also always a challenge. The focus of our work is on two elements of the world of sports: “sports for development,” which is sports used as a tool to address the world's greatest needs and further the UN Social Development Goals (SDGs), and “sports diplomacy,” which means—as an individual, a brand, an organization, a culture, a nation—how do you use sport to tell your story? How does your involvement in sport tell us about what you believe? These are areas that are incredibly powerful in sustainable development and storytelling, but they also are areas that are still not commonly understood.
John: Thanks for having me, Spiffy! Global Fund for Children (GFC) exists to support organizations working to help young people around the world. We raise funds, find amazing organizations, give them funding to use how they see fit, and help connect them with peers and experts to help them become more effective. These organizations are in many cases led by young people, and all of them are deeply rooted in the communities they serve. They help young people directly, and they also work to change the systems that prevent young people from realizing their potential.
