From David Ruth
Employment Support Institute (ESI)

For over six years the Social Security Administration (SSA) provided the bulk of our funding while we developed WorkWORLD. That funding allowed us to provide WorkWORLD free to all who wanted to use the software to help themselves or others find safe paths to employment and higher net income. In May 2005, SSA's contract with us to develop and enhance WorkWORLD came to an end.

Now, if we are to continue improving and distributing this software we must rely on individuals, advocacy organizations and other governmental entities to support us financially. So we have created three methods for providing this support:

1. State-specific Pledges of Support: Support that makes WorkWORLD free to residents of particular states. To find out how you can pledge, or how you might advocate for your state organizations and government entities to pledge, go to Achieving Free WorkWORLD in Your State Through Pledges.



2. Purchase of WorkWORLD: Individuals or organizations can purchase a year's subscription to WorkWORLD and updates for $50 or a year's subscription to the stand-alone Help/Information System for $25. To purchase WorkWORLD go to How To Get WorkWORLD.



3. Donations: You can make a donation by going to our secure donations server. Charitable gifts to ESI are tax-deductible. Your company may match your gift through the VCU Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3 charity. To make a gift go to Make Your Donation.

Our survival as a team is dependent on you. We strongly believe that WorkWORLD is an invaluable tool for empowering people with disabilities and their advocates. It can help you navigate the benefits maze and find safe paths to employment, paths that don't leave you without benefits (including health care) unless you can afford to do without them.

We care about taxpayers too; they benefit when people stop fearing work and earnings. Fear is generated by complex policies that scare people to such a degree that attempting real work seems a highly risky endeavor. This fear has been prevalent for many, many years and it is simply wrong. The existing system of interacting policies has held people back for too long.

This is our promise to you: if you contribute to our healthy survival we in turn will work to improve our product and find better strategies for helping people achieve independence and self-determination.

Who makes up the ESI team that is fighting to serve you?

David Ruth directs ESI. He has been a job coach, a supported employment program manager, a program consultant, and a software innovator. He co-founded ESI and has been working for over 25 years to advance disability employment and choice exploration opportunities.

Dave Banks, Policy Analyst, has worked for several decades to help improve the lives of people with disabilities and their families through real employment in real jobs, leading to increased income and reduced taxpayer burden. As a researcher, analyst, and software developer, he has strived to increase the level of choice, self-determination, and control available to all by using creative technological innovation to overcome the employment and benefit dilemmas faced by people with disabilities.

Bob Carlson, Software Developer, converted from his role as software programmer in the private sector to become a socially active technically skilled innovator for disability policy. Bob has advocated for a family member lifelong. Originally a volunteer at ESI, he is now the integral programmer building complex disability policy into accessible computer language, and provides direct technical help support for many users, specializing in support to WorkWORLD users with disabilities.

Jim Troxell, Network Developer/Coordinator, has worked on community-based, national, and international employment initiatives for people with disabilities for over 25 years. He interacts with the WorkWORLD user community to help people put WorkWORLD into practice and to bring their recommendations for improvements to ESI's software development and technical support staff.

Mark Hill serves as a liason between ESI and the VCU School of Business Dean's Office. He co-founded ESI, and has worked for over 30 years to improve disability employment and choice exploration opportunities.

More Information

Our New Funding Structure for WorkWORLD page provides an explanation and the rationale for the actions discussed above.

See How To Get WorkWORLD for complete information about ordering WorkWORLD from any state.

Sharing your opinion about the value of WorkWORLD with federal and state leaders could help make and keep WorkWORLD freely available to all in your state. Contact information for state and federal leadership is available on the Key Contacts page.

The Achieving Free WorkWORLD in Your State Through Pledges page shows how state agencies, community-based organizations, and individuals can help build a state funding pool to make WorkWORLD free to residents of your state.

For additional information, please read the comprehensive document Using WorkWORLD to Achieve Employment, Housing, and Self-Determination Outcomes for People with Disabilities: Options for State Agencies and Other Organizations to Sustain ESI's WorkWORLD Software and Training and Consultation Services. It is available in two formats:

 Get the State Options document in Microsoft Word (.doc) format.

 Get the State Options document in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format.