A growing number of organizations offer financial help for amputees to support mobility.
May is known as Mobility Awareness Month, but the actual subject is immobility. That’s what we’re raising awareness about—the fact that millions of amputees and other people with disabilities don’t enjoy the mobility they deserve because they can’t afford the prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs, automobile modifications, and other technology they need.
Fortunately, a growing number of organizations offer financial help for amputees who seek to improve their mobility. When we queried our new Amputee Community Resource Directory, we found nearly 50 programs that provide financial help for amputees. And the number is actually larger than that, because some of these organizations have multiple chapters, including at least one with an office in all 50 states. If we listed all those programs individually, the tally of sources offering financial help for amputees would easily exceed 100.
Mobility Awareness is a year-round commitment for all of these organizations. While the majority of the programs in our Amputee Resource Directory are focused on helping individuals acquire prosthetic limbs, many of them also provide other forms of financial help for amputees, including aid for wheelchairs, automobile modifications, and other mobility-related needs. And many offer services that go beyond mobility, including peer support, mental health counseling, sports and fitness programs, kids’ programs, and advocacy.
We’ve vetted every program in our listings, so you won’t find any outdated information or broken links (and if you do, please report it to us). To see the entire set of programs, use this link for a pre-filtered list of all resources in the “Financial assistance for a prosthesis or other needs” category.
Once you’re there, you can use the keyword search function to further narrow the list and find the program that best fits what you’re looking for. Here are a handful of slice-n-dice examples:
Financial help for a sports-related prosthesis or mobility device
Nine of the organizations in our directory specialize in providing financial help for amputees to obtain a running blade or other sports-related mobility device. That’s not to say they’re the only nine sources of aid—you may be able to get funds for a sports device through other channels. But if sports mobility is your primary goal, this list is the place to start. There are some very well-known organizations on this list, topped by the Challenged Athletes Foundation, which distributed more than $7 million to nearly 4,000 adaptive athletes in its most recent cycle. Click the image to get the pre-filtered list of organizations that specialize in financial assistance for sports mobility devices.
Financial help for prosthetic devices for kids
This list numbers eight organizations. There’s some overlap with the sports category, because a couple of organizations are specifically focused on sport devices for kids. Two of the standouts in this group are the Jordan Thomas Foundation of Tennessee, which is focused on lower-limb prosthetic devices, and Florida-based Limbitless Solutions, which specializes in upper-limb technology. By the way, there’s a lot of redundant keywording in our listings, so you’ll get the same results if you use a related search term such as “children” or “teenager.” Another caveat to keep in mind: Our directory includes about ~25 additional organizations that offer other forms of support for amputee kids—i.e., they may not offer financial aid for a prosthesis, but they offer camps, peer mentoring, recreational programs, etc.
Financial help for prosthetic devices for veterans
This search turns up seven results. Again, these are only the veteran-serving organizations that offer financial support for a prosthesis. The total number of veterans’ programs in our directory exceeds 40, including a large number that offer mental health counseling, outdoor recreation programs, and peer support. And we’ll remind you again that veterans aren’t limited to these seven programs. They’re the best place to start, because they specialize in veterans’ needs, but most programs will serve all comers. For example, the Steps of Faith Foundation serves everyone (including veterans) on the basis of financial need. So if you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for here, just remove the “veteran” filter, broaden your search, and keep looking.
Searching by location
We won’t lie: The geosearch function in our Amputee Resource Directory isn’t ideal. We’re working to fix that, and when we have a better solution you’ll be hearing about it. For now, the best way to filter the results by location is to type your state name (spelled out, no abbreviations) into the search bar. For example, if we select category “Financial assistance” and then filter the results by “Texas,” we return 12 results. For Florida, we get nine programs; for New York, ten; for California, 12. Many programs are national in scope, so they appear in the search results for every state. Even a small state such as Delaware returns a handful of programs in this category.
The bottom line: No matter where you live or who you are, there may be financial help available to help you improve your mobility.