Mission and Values 

The ONCE Foundation for Cooperation and the Social Integration of People with Disabilities (hereinafter, the ONCE Foundation) was founded in 1988, by agreement of the ONCE General Council, and launched into society in September of the same year as an instrument of cooperation and solidarity from the Spanish blind towards other collectives of people with disabilities in order to improve their living conditions.

Right from the start, the blind people’s collective has shown great solidarity with other collectives of people with disabilities, according to the possibilities of each moment in history. In the middle of the 1980s, with the lottery ticket reform, the ONCE was able to progressively incorporate lottery ticket sellers who were not blind, integrating more than 10,000 people with other disabilities between 1985 and 1987. One more step on this path of solidarity took place in 1988 with the creation of the ONCE Foundation.

Objetives and lines of action

The principal objective of the ONCE Foundation is to implement integration programmes of work-related training and employment for people with disabilities, and universal accessibility, promoting the creation of universally accessible environments, products and services.

Any person with Spanish nationality affected by a physical, mental, or sensory disability, in accordance with the current regulations and legal qualifications for disability, is a potential beneficiary of the Foundation. Entities with Spanish nationality, with corporate legal status, that in accordance with their articles of association, develop an activity which coincides with that carried out by the ONCE Foundation, according to the provisions of its Articles of Association, may also be potential beneficiaries. The protective action of the Foundation may be extended, with prior agreement from the Board of Trustees, and as proposed by the Permanent Commission, to individuals or corporations of a different nationality in which the aforementioned requisites concur. Beneficiaries must fulfil, in addition, those other conditions specifically established in the different plans and programmes approved by the ONCE Foundation’s Board of Trustees or its Permanent Commission.

Since its creation, in 1988, until December 2007, the ONCE Foundation has supported more than 22,000 projects, presented by individuals and corporations, with a total amount of more than 1,150 million euros.