Task:

Develop a new innovative program that supports Oregon State’s priority population by Oregon’s Senate Bill  SB1545 with an aim to prepare Oregon’s technology workforce. Know as Future Ready Oregon a $200M fund to be given out in three funding rounds.

Overview:

FuseChange led a grant collaboration with Liminal Labs and NTEN to design a new program for the Portland Metro Area called The Open Source Fellowship. The program trains five neurodivergent fellows to build open-source technology for local nonprofits, developing real-world skills while delivering meaningful community impact.

Outcome:  Winning $667,000 grant (full budget awarded)

The collaboration was awarded a $667,000 grant through Future Ready Oregon, a $200 million state fund dedicated to advancing Oregon’s workforce development strategies.

The program addresses a meaningful gap: an estimated 30–40% of unemployed individuals are neurodivergent. This population is often highly capable, with distinct strengths that can help teams think differently and solve complex problems. The challenge tends to emerge during hiring, when employers and hiring committees may not fully understand neurodifferences and once hired, sustaining employment can be difficult in workplaces not designed with a range of cognitive styles in mind.

Research supports the case for neuroinclusive hiring. Studies have found that disability-inclusive companies can see meaningfully higher revenues, and that neurodivergent talent brings fresh perspectives that benefit creativity and problem-solving. The core opportunity is straightforward: these are talented, motivated individuals who are ready to contribute.

The core insight is: this represents untapped human capital — talented, motivated people who are ready to work.

Neurodiverse persons are valuable!

“Many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including those in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics. Yet they often struggle to fit the profiles sought by employers.” – Harvard Business School, 2017

Middlebury’s Guide on Business for Neurodiversity highlights the business case for neuroinclusive environments, citing that disability-inclusive companies see up to 28% higher revenues. Neurodiverse talent introduces fresh new perspectives, fostering creativity and problem-solving that is beneficial for tackling complex business challenges.

Program Design:

FuseChange led the design of a one-year fellowship in which five fellows build open-source technology for a nonprofit in their community. The program is rooted in lived experience and was shaped by and for neurodivergent people working in tech.

The design began with a clear observation: some of the most skilled technology professionals identify as neurodivergent, yet many are working in unrelated fields or are unemployed. The Fellowship was designed to bring these individuals into careers that fit their strengths, while simultaneously helping employers build more neuroinclusive workplaces.

Community input played an important role in shaping the program. Conversations with local employers revealed that technical skills alone were not the primary gap employers needed candidates who could collaborate effectively within agile development environments. This insight informed the program’s structure and was reinforced through partnership with Collab Lab, a Portland-based initiative that has successfully trained hundreds of engineers in collaborative, agile practices.

The program is structured around three core components:

1. Hands-on paid work experience for five neurodivergent fellows.
2. Community events that advance neuroinclusive learning and awareness.
3. Development of open-source technology to support local nonprofits.

Open Source, Community & Nonprofits:

A defining feature of the program is its community-centric approach. Rather than building technology in isolation, FuseChange reached out to nonprofits across the Portland Metro Area to understand what they actually needed to better serve their communities. This ensured the technology developed would be genuinely useful and have real impact on local people.

Building open-source also means the resulting tools can be adopted by other nonprofits anywhere in the country or the world. Open-source technology can serve as connective tissue for collective impact, enabling hundreds of organizations working on similar challenges to share a common platform, pool resources, and collaboratively build out features that benefit the whole.

We delivered:

1. Wrote and secured a winning $667,000 grant proposal with Liminal Labs.
2. Housed the grant within NTEN to maximize reach and opportunity.
3. Established eight local collaborating partners to support the program.
4. Recruited and hired five Fellows.
5. Completed full program setup and launch.