Thank you so much for reaching out about your concerns. Unfortunately, there is some misinformation circulating regarding the nature of our relationship with Autism Speaks.

The Mighty has a non-profit partnership program which takes a variety of forms. The purpose of the partner program (which does not involve money) is to bring free resources to people through stories on our site. We partner with hundreds of organizations, including but not limited to the following autism-related organizations: National Autism Association, Sesame Street, The Art of Autism, ACT! Today, Geek Club Books, Asperger Experts, AutismTalk, The Color of Autism, Global Autism Project, Autism Speaks, and STAR Institute for SPD.

We do understand the concerns about Autism Speaks. We added them to our partnership program only after they announced the change to their mission in the fall of last year. As a company, we believe autistic people and their families need acceptance and understanding, and we do not support curing or eradicating autism.

We do believe a crucial element of our partnership program is that our site and community helps the partners' audiences. By us sharing more content by autistic writers and autism community advocates, it can help educate and change perspectives for the better both within and beyond our Mighty community. We are now one of the largest platforms for autistic writers, and sharing our writers' stories with Autism Speaks can help their readers who may still be struggling to understand and accept autism.

All of our partners have a "partner box" (we sometimes refer to it as a "module"), which can appear at the bottom of stories and offers links and resources on the partner's website. We generally add one of these boxes to stories based on the content, but writers who are associated with a partner as employees, volunteers, or supporters can choose to have that box displayed below their stories. Autism Speaks' partner box is only supposed to be used when a contributor has expressed support of the organization -- we do have a number of autistic writers who are affiliated with them. However, an oversight led to the box being added to an autistic writer who does not want to be affiliated with Autism Speaks. When this individual contacted us, we immediately removed the partner box and apologized. We want to assure you we will work harder to make sure contributors are always comfortable with the partner organizations in their stories.

We are open to feedback regarding our partnership program and would especially like to add additional partners in the autism space that you, our writers and readers, support. So if you are part of an organization or can recommend one, please let us know!

Our health and disability community is very diverse, and opinions differ on important issues. We do evaluate our partnerships periodically, and we never compromise our editorial standards for a partner. We actively work to fight ableism and content that disparages the disability community. We are committed to sharing the voices of autistic writers and the diverse voices of the larger disability and health community.

We hope this helps to alleviate your concerns.

-- The Mighty Staff