Adaptive Sports Movement
Driving Innovation and Access to Adaptive Sports and Activity Equipment.
What moves you?
The Invisible Market : “1 in 5 Americans have a disability, 1 in 3 families has a household member with a disability, and more than 1 in 3 of us globally will eventually join the community.”
— Stanford Social Innovation Review
Letter from the Founder…
No one should be without community, exercise and easy mobility. No one should question their value in the world because they are different.
I have been involved with adaptive sports for 13 years through my son Raphael who was born with 1 leg. Like everyone, we discovered it through “Word of mouth”. We found a local group where Raphael exercised, then trained, traveled and found a 2nd family. I am now on their board to help them help more people.
Never before have I met people with the self-confidence, personal agency and loyalty of this community. At the CAF triathlon, at the beach I saw people of all ages, all abilities, including Raphael, drop their prostheses and chairs on the sand and dive into the ocean for a mile open water swim. It changed my view of “ability”. Seeing the beach littered with the equipment that brought them there was stunning.
This Movement was created to enable all people to excel. We want to help create a world in which we all feel expected, welcomed and valued.
Thank you for being interested and for helping!
Physical activity can transform the lives of people with physical challenges
But… The cost of equipment is prohibitive, awareness is low and insurance will not reimburse sport.
Our Mission
Is to increase awareness, engage more corporations and accelerate innovation so more people in this world will feel expected, welcome and valued.
Roundtables
Change The Agenda
Media Lab
Educate, Enable & Include
Tech Lab
Drive innovation
ASM Roundtable
Curated, Multistakeholder discussions to change the agenda from disabled to enabled.
AGENDA: Share new perspectives and generate strategies to increase awareness and strategic corporate, employee and community engagement.
The Spot Roundtable - In partnership with ThinkSport
Location: The SwissTech Convention center, Lausanne Switzerland: https://thespot.ch/
Participants: Hopper Running Blades, Airbus, Salomon, Adidas, DaesS port
Move United Education Conference
Location: Colorado Springs, CO https://moveunitedsport.org/education/2022-move-united-education-conference/
Participants: Toyota Mobility Foundation, All In Sport Consulting, Tolsma/Stockwell Prosthetics, Veterans’ Health Administration, MIT
Address to the Disability Advisory Committee
Nothing about us, without us is not a slogan. It should guide every deliberation and action being taken in order to create and sustain a more equitable and just world.
Disability could negatively impact self-esteem, limit participation in recreational and social activities, create the potential for isolation (and) increase the chances of physical and mental health issues…
There is considerable evidence that..adaptive sports have the power to transform lives both in changing how personas with disabilities looks at themselves, as well as in how society treats them.
The tow barriers are..expensive sports equipment and lack of awareness that adaptive programs exist.
A new initiative called the Adaptive Sports Movement is holding Roundtables to address these issues, working with media companies to design strategies to raise awareness and tell more inclusive stories.
Geoffrey Starks
Commissioner FCC
Our Partners
Leadership
Susan Pinkwater, MSW, MFA
Founder
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Read Susan's Bio
Susan is a passionate advocate for the rights of all humans, using her business acumen and marketing expertise as powerful tools to help start-ups start better and for established corporations to harness the power of good.
Co-founder of Pinkwater & Putman, one of the first Social Impact strategy consultancies working with organizations like The Fair Food Program, to protect the human rights of farm workers. P&P won multiple awards including, 1st place D&AD White Pencil Social Impact award, 1st and 2nd place Cynopsis Media Social Impact awards, CSR International award and runners up for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas award and Shorty Social Good.
Prior to this, Susan was the founder of Atmosphere (later assumed by BBDO), one of the first global, full service digital advertising agencies and was Identified in Ad Week’s Top 100 and “One to Watch”.
Susan’s now spends 100% of her time focusing on creating access, inclusion and better lives for people with physical disabilities.
Melissa Tinney, M.D.
Director of Research and Education
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Read Melissa's Bio
Melissa has spent her medical career dedicated to improving the quality of life and creating access for her patients with physical disability.
As a Physical Medicine & Rehab Specialist, Melissa has clinical experience in adaptive sports medicine, amputation care, musculoskeletal medicine, and spinal cord injury. She is a member of the National Medical Team for the National Veterans Wheelchair Games since 2017, and currently serves as an executive board member of the University of Michigan Adaptive and Inclusive Sports Experience (UMAISE), a Move United Chapter, providing medical and quality oversight to a multitude of adaptive sports and recreation activities.
Melissa started her career, training at the University of Michigan Physical Medicine & Rehab Program, and has continued on to become a member of the faculty as Clinical Assistant Professor with academic focus in Amputation Care and Adaptive Sports Medicine.
Your Title Goes Here
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Read Susan's Bio
Susan is a passionate advocate for the rights of all humans, using her business acumen and marketing expertise as powerful tools to help start-ups start better and for established corporations to harness the power of good.
Co-founder of Pinkwater & Putman, one of the first Social Impact strategy consultancies working with organizations like The Fair Food Program, to protect the human rights of farm workers. P&P won multiple awards including, 1st place D&AD White Pencil Social Impact award, 1st and 2nd place Cynopsis Media Social Impact awards, CSR International award and runners up for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas award and Shorty Social Good.
Prior to this, Susan was the founder of Atmosphere (later assumed by BBDO), one of the first global, full service digital advertising agencies and was Identified in Ad Week’s Top 100 and “One to Watch”.
Susan’s now spends 100% of her time focusing on creating access, inclusion and better lives for people with physical disabilities.
Your Title Goes Here
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Read Melissa's Bio
Melissa has spent her medical career dedicated to improving the quality of life and creating access for her patients with physical disability.
As a Physical Medicine & Rehab Specialist, Melissa has clinical experience in adaptive sports medicine, amputation care, musculoskeletal medicine, and spinal cord injury. She is a member of the National Medical Team for the National Veterans Wheelchair Games since 2017, and currently serves as an executive board member of the University of Michigan Adaptive and Inclusive Sports Experience (UMAISE), a Move United Chapter, providing medical and quality oversight to a multitude of adaptive sports and recreation activities.
Melissa started her career, training at the University of Michigan Physical Medicine & Rehab Program, and has continued on to become a member of the faculty as Clinical Assistant Professor with academic focus in Amputation Care and Adaptive Sports Medicine.
Advisory Council
David Grevemberg
Chief Innovation and Partnerships Officer
Centre for Sport and Human Rights
Jason Thompson
Senior Advisor, Diversity Equity and Inclusion
CAPE Inclusion
Francesca Riccio-Ackerman
Research Specialist
MIT Media Lab
Anna Hellman
Director
ThinkSport
Glenn Merry
Executive Director
Move United
Cheryl Kaiser
Executive Director, The Lewis Institute and Babson Social Innovation Lab
Babson College
Blair Levin
Non-resident Senior Fellow
The Brookings Institute
Sally Searby
VP Global Markets
Renaissance Learning
Chiqui Cartagena
Chief Marketing Officer, The Conference Board
Robert Schermers
Partner, Business Humanizer at Innate Motion
Background: Adaptive Sport Organizations
For people with access to good insurance, knowledgeable doctors and advocacy there are good but expensive solutions to lack of mobility, but not to sports.
Nationally there are local adaptive sports organizations that work with children, veterans and adults. They organize programming, community events and coach and train their elite athletes as the pipeline to the Paralympics. They also request grants (to gift expensive adaptive sports equipment to enable participation.
The two largest granting and qualifying organizations are, Challenged Athletes Foundation which has provided over 26,000 grants for equipment, raised over $112M and reached 20M people worldwide and Move United , which grants equipment and organizes events, and including national awards for excellence and qualifying events for the Paralympics.
Move United is 3 years into their goal of bringing adaptive sport programming within 50 miles of 90% of people with a physical disability in the US. This is an incredible goal which will benefit the whole ecosystem.
But… how will people know about these programs and how, without adaptive sports equipment will they participate.
ASM GOALs: To raise national awareness and to decrease the cost of equipment for mobility and sport so all people can participate.
Corporate Involvement
In today’s globally interconnected world, a company must create value for and be valued by its full range of stakeholders in order to deliver long-term value for its shareholders
-Larry Fink, Blackrock 2022 letter to CEOs
The Invisible 1B
The World Bank estimates that there are more than 1billion people worldwide live with a disability. As consumers, they represent a market the size of the United States, Brazil, Pakistan and Indonesia combined and a disposable income of more than $8 trillion
Consumers buy and work for brands with purpose and they care how corporations involve themselves in positive societal shifts, and they choose the products they buy and companies they work for based on these behaviors.
- 88% would prefer to buy a product from a Purpose-driven company
- 71% would purchase when cost and quality are equal
- 78% are more likely to remember a company with a strong purpose.
- 78% of those aged 18-24 are willing to spend more on a product or service.
- 66% would switch from a product they typically buy
- 78% would tell others to buy
- 68% are more willing to share content with their social networks *1
90% of companies have agreed to prioritize DE&I initiatives, but only 4% consider disability in those initiatives.
-According to a report from the Return On Disability Group
ASM Media Platform
Educate, enable and include.
AGENDA: Engage corporations to: Raise awareness and tell better stories, target DEI strategies to increase the 4% and to fund innovation to create a fair playing field.
Some Good Examples
Peter Grauer, chairman of Bloomberg, said on stage at Davos this year Bloomberg has ensured that its 4.5 million square feet of real estate around the world is accessible to those with disabilities to ensure all colleagues can come to work every day. It has already rolled out disability awareness training to 1,000 of its 18,500 employees will bring the program to 6,000 team leaders and managers by the end of 2020.
Audi’s approach to creating an accessible workplace includes flexible work schedules, and transparent processes, such as reporting on their DE&I initiatives, ensuring they are held to account by external parties such as the charity Motability, and others.
The Nike FlyEase laceless shoe was inspired by a teen with cerebral palsy. 16-year-old Matthew Walzer contacted Nike to tell them his dream was to go to college without worrying about someone having to tie his shoelaces. He had overcome so many obstacles in his life, yet tying his own shoe laces remained a challenge. It is now being purchased by many more disabled and able-bodied customers.
Microsoft has also made a strong commitment to accessibility offerings in recent years, in part due to CEO Satya Nadella’s experience of having a child who is severely disabled. In 2018, the company launched AI for Accessibility, a $25 million, five-year grant program that aims to “amplify human capability.” The company’s Seeing AI app reads text and describes objects aloud for people with low vision
ASM Tech Lab
Create less expensive equipment for mobility and adaptive sport to afford access for all.
AGENDA: To increase the rate of innovation in the intersection of science, technology, medicine, disability and sport to create less expensive equipment for mobility and adaptive sport
Our Events
May 10th, 2022
Move United Education Conference
May 18, 2022
THINKSPORT at the SwissTech Convention Center