History
The Disability Rights Fund (DRF) was started as the result of conversations between philanthropic staff and the disability community during the Ad-Hoc Committee meetings leading up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.Subsequent discussions between grantmakers during meetings of the International Human Rights Funders Group disability working group led to the conception of the DRF as a pooled effort of multiple donors.
In 2007, an anonymous donor initiated DRF with a grant to the Fund for Global Human Rights to hire a consultant to develop structure and build relationships with other donors and the disability rights field.
After a collaborative process with the international DPO community, a Framework for the Fund was finalized in December 2007. DRF started operations as a project of the Tides Center in January 2008.