Rick Hansen Foundation

Since his Man In Motion World Tour, Rick Hansen has nurtured a dream of a true collaboration across the spinal cord injury community, both nationally and globally. Over the past six years, he has led a unique effort to bring about a Canada-wide vision for SCI integration and collaboration - established through extensive consultation with people with SCI, and supported by over $70 million in funding from the federal, provincial and territorial governments across Canada.

Years in the making, the Rick Hansen Foundation (RHF) led the formal creation of the Spinal Cord Injury Solutions Network in 2008, a Canada-wide collaboration of people with spinal cord injuries, researchers and service providers, along with their respective organizations, dedicated to generating life-enhancing solutions for Canadians with spinal cord injuries. Like many successful RHF programs, the Spinal Cord Injury Solutions Network has matured into an independent charitable organization. It has been renamed the Rick Hansen Institute (RHI) to honour the man whose vision sparked its creation and whose leadership made it possible.

The Foundation will continue to provide significant support to RHI in the form of funding grants and high-level accountability to funders, assistance to create a financially sustainable business model and enhance capacity to expand into the international community (where Rick’s leadership will be integral to success).

RHI works to minimize disability and maximize quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries. Its primary objectives are to:

• Reduce the incidence and severity of permanent paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury
• Increase restoration of physical function following spinal cord injury
• Reduce the incidence and severity of secondary complications associated with spinal cord injury
• Increase the level of satisfaction with quality of life and community participation among people with spinal cord injuries
• Ensure that customized responses to priority unmet needs are available to 100% of individuals with spinal cord injuries throughout their journey to full community participation
• Establish a world-class spinal cord injury registry and data management platform
  

RHI will meet its objectives by facilitating targeted translational research, promoting best practice adoption across the entire “injury to community” service continuum, and creating solutions to meet the most important needs of persons with spinal cord injuries through partnerships at the community level.

RHI exists today because of Rick’s leadership and tenacity and his unparalleled ability to achieve “the impossible”.