Project Description:
The Partnership for People with Disabilities at Virginia Commonwealth University is proposing to work with the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities to establish a statewide, cross-disability nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization led by self-advocates. This project, Self-Advocates Leading Together (SALT), will bring together diverse self-advocacy perspectives in Virginia to identify common ground for grassroots systems change advocacy. A state steering committee of self-advocacy leaders and allies will provide guidance, direction, and oversight to the establishment of the nonprofit organization.
The overarching purpose of the proposed nonprofit organization is to bring the perspective of networked self-advocates to public policy decision-making at the local, regional and state levels in Virginia through public education and awareness, peer mentoring, support, advocacy and direct action. To ensure that the resulting organization accomplishes its goal, the following objectives will be implemented in the SALT project:
 Objective 1: To understand various models of self-advocacy organizations to assist with steering committee decision-making on how best to structure an organization in Virginia.
 Objective 2: To bring together a diverse group of decision-makers to plan and develop an independent, non-profit self-advocacy organization in Virginia.
 Objective 3: To establish and launch an independent, nonprofit self-advocacy organization in Virginia.
Ongoing collaboration among individuals with disabilities and other partners will characterize SALT. From the project's inception, individuals with disabilities will be involved as staff and steering committee members and as allies both in determining priorities and in making nonprofit organizational budget and management decisions. Project staff and allies will work to find continuation funding through the many organizations and agencies in the Commonwealth that realize the need for self-advocate leaders to provide input on issues that directly affect their lives.
