My main focus for the major project is an analysis on how charities and fundraisers have chosen and currently choose to represent people with disabilities in their efforts to acquire funds that would provide them with accommodations and services. This essay will focus specific attention how sponsors, non-profit directors, and the general public respond to different organizations and their success rate compared to the levels of ableism and inspiration porn forced upon the people utilizing these organizations. A source I’m going to utilize is the short documentary “The Kids Are Alright” paying close attention to how the Muscular Dystrophy Association set the precedent for charities for disabled people and how it has influenced organization operations today. A couple of these foundations I’m looking into include Smile Train and Autism Speaks because I’ve heard a lot of negative things about them. Another foundation I will focus on comparing to these is GoFundMe because it functions very differently than traditional charities and brought a new set of issues to the table in how people are able to gain the support they need.

So far my project is going well in that I’ve collected most of the sources I’m going to draw from other than images taken from the sites. So I am focused on working on my arguments in relation to the information and bringing in images as needed. Right now the thing I’m trying to figure out is how to best organize my ideas. I generally know that I want to start off talking about “The Kids Are Alright” and reference one or more of the readings we’ve gone over in class in order to qualify some arguments. Then perhaps going off of that framework I will delve into the specific ways the other foundations poorly represent people with disabilities and/or how the organizations take advantage of those they represent, though I’ll have to do more research before getting into those issues. I’m having trouble organizing our past readings in my head, are there any specific ones related to representation that anyone thinks would be useful for me to utilize in my arguments before I go through all of them again in depth?