Strategic Plan

In 2009, NOD adopted a three-year strategic plan that emphasizes developing and implementing demonstration programs to generate practical knowledge in the disability employment field. Highlights of the plan include:

• Expanding two clusters of employment-focused demonstration programs:
  • Work with the military: Through our Wounded Warrior Career Demonstration, NOD is helping the US Army open pathways to education, training, and employment for more than 200 severely wounded Iraq/Afghanistan veterans, and learning what career supports work best for this population.
  • Work with corporate America: In Bridges to Business, NOD is working to create tighter, more effective links among people with disabilities, their sources of training and education, and the employers who want to hire them. This includes our pioneering transition program, Start on Success (SOS). NOD is extracting key lessons from our 15 year investment in SOS and disseminating them as a resource to policymakers and programmers in the field of transition from school to work for youth with disabilities.
• Acting as a resource center on disability employment:
  • In all of our work, we are capturing lessons and sharing that knowledge with employers, service providers, researchers, policymakers, and the general public.
  • Consistent with our history of providing key data on the status of Americans with disabilities, in partnership with the Kessler Foundation, NOD is commissioning two new Harris Polls in 2010, including one on employment of people with disabilities. Findings from the surveys will document the status of Americans with disabilities 20 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, and will guide policymakers and practitioners in the disability community.

Our strategy, which focuses on managing and learning from demonstration programs, and on serving as a resource center on employment, promises to powerfully advance knowledge, practice, and policies on employment for Americans with disabilities.