More Than Walking Incorporated
Sharing The Path To Independence After Spinal Cord Injury
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Every year 500,000 people suffer a spinal cord injury (SCI) worldwide (WHO). Most lose the ability to walk, control bowel & bladder, and engage with society. They gain crushing social stigma, financial hardship, nerve pain, and depression. Patients must relearn how to use available movement for the most basic tasks like getting up from bed or speaking with a ventilator in order to pursue independence. In the US, patients may receive specialized therapy for an average 34 days (NSCISC 2018), which is not enough to face the inaccessibility and isolation outside the hospital. In India and Colombia, patients often do not have specialized therapy or independent living as a goal due to lack of awareness among medical providers and access to assistive technologies. Providers cannot intervene outside the hospital and patients everywhere rarely find peer mentors during hospitalization due to mentor unavailability, restrictive hospital policies, or a patient’s emotional state.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Video Course
500,000 people worldwide suffer a spinal cord injury every year. Most lose the ability to walk, control bowel & bladder, and engage with society. What they often gain is crushing social stigma, financial hardship, nerve pain, and depression. Patients often feel alienated, even with their own doctors and therapists, and return home without knowing how they can ever live independently again.
More Than Walking's massive open online video course educates patients on independence skills, connects them to community, and empowers them to share what they learn with the world. We do that by filming the stories of local peer mentors and using their demonstration videos of independent living skills to create step-by-step courses for every type of spinal cord injury. From peer recommendations, we make viewers aware of medical suppliers and disability-related businesses and services in their area through a global resource map.
Where we work
External reviews
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of people with disabilities who volunteer as peer mentors and share their story or independence skills on film.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with physical disabilities
Related Program
Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Video Course
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This reflects new and previous years' volunteers who submitted videos in the current year.
Number of new volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with disabilities
Related Program
Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Video Course
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of peer mentor interviews submitted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with disabilities
Related Program
Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Video Course
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of peer mentor demonstrations submitted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with disabilities
Related Program
Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Video Course
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of help/mentee trequests
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with disabilities
Related Program
Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Video Course
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
We are creating a massive open online video course to connect SCI patients to community, educate them on independence skills, and empower them to share what they learn with the world. Patients will understand what they need to learn to maximize independence and to find mentors, adaptive recreation, medical suppliers, and existing support programs in their community. Improved independence and community reintegration of patients leads to employment and reduced costs 73% of SCI survivors in US remain unemployed 10 years after injury, costing over $1 million in the first year and $50,000 $200,000 each year thereafter (NSCISC 2018). Regardless of experience with SCI, therapists will better understand the perspective of their patients, arrange for peer mentor visits, and communicate therapy goals, mobility strategies, and community resources to patients and caregivers. Physical & Occupational Therapy, Nursing, and medical students will understand the diversity within SCI populations and
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We do this regionally by recording stories of peer mentors of every SCI type from adaptive sports teams, editing their demonstration videos of 16 activities of independent living, and distributing this to SCI treating hospitals as a patient education course. Demonstrations related to bed mobility, sitting, transfers, wheelchair skills, standing, and walking are accompanied by a therapist analysis video that breaks down each activity and explains key muscles, precautions, and progression strategies. As SCI viewers learn new skills, they can become mentors too and submit their own demonstrations.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Our services are unique in that we are connecting course users to all available regional resources that they otherwise may not find. We provide video production assistance for community members and patients to become peer mentors and share their experiences. We incorporate physical and occupational therapy insight alongside regionally specific mentor demonstrations to facilitate patient education in any context. We structure peer mentor and therapy independence strategies in a course that patients can easily follow and contribute to with their own insight.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
We have 4 output objectives for 2020. 1) Interview at least 40 additional peer mentor volunteers from the USA and around the world by the end of 2020. Last year we interviewed 37 individuals. Over a recorded video call, participants share their pre- and post-injury story, the challenges they have faced, and the methods by which they have or are pursuing independence, speaking to newly-injured viewers who need to know that life after injury is possible. 2) Publish at least 25 demonstrations of skills filmed and submitted by peer mentors volunteers, from bed sore prevention to walking with orthotics. 3) Complete and set-up a pilot version of the compiled online course in collaboration with rehabilitation providers. 4) Connect at least 100 SCI/D video viewers/participants to our virtual community groups on Facebook, e-mail, and Zoom, in addition to those of allied organizations.
1) We will reach out to the 76 volunteer peer mentors who have shared their stories through us so far to recommend additional peer mentors in their communities to reach out to. We will also contact existing support group leaders in all 50 US states as well as in countries where we have international volunteers - India, Colombia, and Nigeria - to offer our free services of facilitating virtual peer mentor introductions for their local communities. 2) We will continue to challenge all our interviewees with the opportunity to reach hundreds or thousands of viewers via practical videos they submit for us to publish and distribute. 3) We will evaluate which online course platform is best suited for our purpose and begin building content from our 136+ videos. 4) We hope to hire a community facilitator to help mentors and mentees find the community support that they require.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
More Than Walking Incorporated
Board of directorsas of 02/25/2021
Jonathan Sigworth
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
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Gender identity
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Transgender Identity
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Sexual orientation
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Disability
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