Giving Compass' Take:

• Philanthropy News Digest reports on a new three-year, $10 million grant to the Special Olympics from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which will boost inclusive sports and education programs around the world.

• As the Special Olympics comes to Seattle this year, now is a good time to reflect on the organization's efforts to change the lives of those with special needs through its model of advocacy and inspiration.

• For more on the 2018 Special Olympics and its mission, click here.

Special Olympics has announced a three-year, $10 million grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in support of the organization's efforts to forge stronger youth engagement and transform educational systems globally through inclusive sport.

On the eve of Special Olympics' fiftieth anniversary, the organization has worked with SNF to create the Play Unified. Learn Unified model, which is designed to increase access and opportunity to school-based inclusive sports and education programming. To help address the needs of a community that comprises approximately 3 percent to 4 percent of the global population, the model will introduce Special Olympics Unified Sports and Unified Schools programming to more communities worldwide and establish new and lasting inclusive policies around sports and education. Focus countries for the partnership include Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Serbia, Chinese Taipei, and Tanzania.

Globally, the partnership will work to expand the reach and impact of in-school and inclusive sports programming, resulting in approximately two thousand new "unified" schools for the movement — schools that have active inclusive sports and advocacy programs for students of all ability levels. In addition, the partnership will train more than twenty thousand coaches to further develop the model.

Read the full article about the $10 million grant to the Special Olympics from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation at Philanthropy News Digest.