The Dyslexia Giving Pledge

This is for successful dyslexic adults, whether you’ve been successful in one of the areas that dyslexics tend to find their calling — as an entrepreneur, architect, scientist, engineer, in the creative or performing arts — or you have had success elsewhere.

A few questions to ask yourself:

• How hard was it growing up as a dyslexic?
• How much did the strengths that come from your dyslexia contribute to your success?

If you’re like most dyslexics, school was really hard. You likely failed often but got through with grit and determination.

Likewise, like many successful dyslexics, you also probably attribute much of your success to that same grit and determination plus the creativity, problem solving skills and ability to see the ‘big picture’ that your dyslexic brain possesses. Many dyslexics view these as their superpowers.

Now, imagine what your life might have been like if you had grown up in a world where notable dyslexics like Henry Ford or Walt Disney had dedicated some or all of their philanthropy to support dyslexics. If they had, you might have had the opportunity to get an education that was tailored to your gifts and better supported your learning differences. But they didn’t support dyslexia and you didn’t grow up in that world.

However, with your success, you can have a real impact on dyslexia and the kids growing up both today and tomorrow if you choose to focus your philanthropy on dyslexia. And these aren’t just anyone's kids: these are your children and grandchildren. As a dyslexic, your chance of having a dyslexic child is 40–60%, and that chance goes up if other family members are also affected.

Back in 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett announced The Giving Pledge, a campaign to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes, and began recruiting members. As of now, an astounding $365 billion has been pledged to charity.

This note is to propose The Dyslexia Giving Pledge, inspired by The Giving Pledge, to encourage successful dyslexics to do what people like Henry Ford and Walt Disney did not do: focus their philanthropy on dyslexia.

The idea is that, as a successful dyslexic, you decide how much of your success you attribute to the fact that you are dyslexic and pledge to focus a commensurate amount of your philanthropy on dyslexia.

As an example, if you feel that dyslexia significantly contributed to your success, than you would pledge a significant percentage of your philanthropy to dyslexia.

So, fill in the blanks for you and take the Dyslexia Giving Pledge:

Dyslexia has contributed [significantly] to my success so I pledge to focus a [significant] amount of my philanthropy on dyslexia.

Like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett with their pledge, you can also recruit others to do the same. Imagine the impact if a whole range of successful dyslexics like you across the country and around the world take the Dyslexia Giving Pledge and encourage other to also take the pledge.

What does does it mean to focus your philanthropy on dyslexia? That, of course, is completely up to you. There are a range of non-profit organizations focused on different aspects of dyslexia. Like most non-profits, they are all likely underfunded so your philanthropy would certainly be very impactful to their mission.

There are also opportunities for new non-profits to fill in gaps in the dyslexia landscape. We are a group of successful dyslexics and parents of dyslexics working to form a new non-profit to support dyslexic students and their parents. We are looking to de-stigmatize dyslexia and focus on the emotional hurdles that keep dyslexics from achieving their potential, an area we don’t see other non-profits focusing on.

Our new non-profit is also offering advisory services to successful dyslexic philanthropists to develop customized philanthropic strategic plans. In other words, we can help you develop what it means for you to focus your philanthropy on dyslexia. We are in the process of developing a network of nationally recognized dyslexia experts and can bring these people to the table to help you, your family and any philanthropy professionals you have supporting you to develop a high impact and measurable plan for your charitable giving. We can also help you build a dyslexia advisory board to guide your philanthropy for long-term support of your charitable giving.

If you are interested in being among the founding members of the Dyslexia Giving Pledge — let us know.