About Us
See Our GiftsOverview
The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), founded in 1979, is a leading national civil rights law and policy center directed by individuals with disabilities and parents who have children with disabilities.
Mission
To advance the civil and human rights of people with disabilities through legal advocacy, training, education, and public policy and legislative development. We envision a just world where all people, with and without disabilities, live full and independent lives free of discrimination.
Program
Children & Family Advocacy: We provide training, information, and resources about special education rights for students with disabilities, and we advocate for them with school officials, policy and decision makers, and in the courts.
Training & Education: We train and educate people with disabilities, parents of children with disabilities lawyers, service providers, government officials, and many others about disability civil rights laws and policies.
Legal Advocacy: We represent clients in state and federal court, serve as co-counsel, and file amicus curiae briefs in appellate courts and the U.S. Supreme Court in high impact and law reform disability rights cases.
Public Policy & Legislation: We design and carry out strategies that strengthen public policy and that lead to the enactment of federal and state laws protecting and advancing civil rights for people with disabilities.
International: We collaborate internationally on legislative, training, advocacy and community organizing strategies with leaders with disabilities, parents of children with disabilities, and advocacy, services, and law and policy organizations.
Research: We conduct research and report on issues that affect the rights of people with disabilities.
Impact
DREDF’s impact derives from a quarter century devoted to developing a carefully reasoned law and policy foundation to ensure equal opportunity and the protection of individual rights for all persons with disabilities. Through training, legal advocacy, and legislative and policy development DREDF has launched a sea change in the way society views disability. No longer is poverty and social isolation perceived as an inevitable consequence of the limitations imposed by disability. Rather, they are now recognized as the result of society's historic responses to those limitations: lack of accessibility and policies that encourage or even require exclusion, segregation, and institutionalization.
Countries
United States
Contact
2212 Sixth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: (800) 348-4232
www.dredf.org
EIN: 94-2620758
A Gift Card
Health
Organize Neighbors
One community meeting
Your contribution will support one half-day community meeting with local leaders and residents with disabilities in West Oakland, California. DREDF has been reaching out to grassroots community organizations that have organized in response to environmental injustice in their neighborhoods. Community meetings provide a forum to strengthen our collaboration and plan future steps including methods to promote disability anti-discrimination education, training and, if necessary, litigation in...
$50000 $500.00
Adapt Healthcare
3 policy meetings
Your contribution will support participation by a disability policy analyst in three meetings with policy makers where the right to accessible healthcare will be at stake for people with disabilities. Our analysts are breaking new ground by working with policy makers in California to ensure that managed care organizations work with their medical providers to achieve accessibility for people with disabilities and provide accommodations—Braille, Sign...
$30000 $300.00
Keep A Child Safe
2 hours of advocacy
The federal government is committed to the idea that no child will be left behind in public schools. Our advocacy on behalf of children with diabetes will ensure that no child is locked out because schools will not provide assurances that children with diabetes will be safe in school. Your donation will help us advocate for the critical services required to keep a child with...
$25000 $250.00
Organize A Community
5 hours of organizing
Your contribution will enable a community organizer to meet for up to five hours with a local group of people with disabilities who want to change, for example, a transportation, voting, or healthcare policy or practice, or fix a problem in their community. This interaction will include an analysis of the issue(s), development of step-by-step action strategies, and a plan for media involvement.
$25000 $250.00
Ensure Access
Disability rights law
Armed with knowledge about their rights under laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, individuals can speak out effectively against being excluded or treated unfairly because they have a disability, and ultimately participate fully and equally in their communities. For someone with a disability, your gift can change the course of their life. Your contribution will provide a day of training on disability civil...
$25000 $250.00
Empower A Parent
One hour of advice
The old and often used Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime" is put into practice everyday at DREDF. Your gift will help the family of a child with a disability become active and stay involved in their child's education and increase the likelihood that their...
$5500 $55.00