Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities – Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund is sponsored by Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities. Provides scholarship assistance for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families to attend advocacy and learning events.

Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund - Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities Next Council Meeting: April 23-24, 2026 (Atlanta) Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Assamese Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bosnian latin Bulgarian Burmese Cantonese traditional Catalan Cebuano Chinese simplified Chinese traditional Corsican Croatian Czech Dari Danish Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Fijian Filipino Finnish French Frisian Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hmong daw Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Inuktitut Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Klingon Khmer Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Nyanja Odia Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Queretaro otomi Romanian Russian Samoan Scots gaelic Serbian Sesotho Shona Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sudanese Swahili Swedish Tahitian Tajik Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Tongan Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uyghur Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Yucatec maya Zulu Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund The Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund (formerly the Learning Opportunities Support Fund) honors the 30+ years of service that dedicated advocate Dottie Adams gave to people with developmental disabilities during her lifetime.

The goal of this program is to support individuals with developmental disabilities and their families by providing scholarship assistance to attend advocacy, learning events, and conferences. This program is designed to empower these individuals in their efforts to achieve independence, productivity, integration, and inclusion.

The fund awards small grants (not to exceed $2,500) that help individuals with disabilities and their families attend advocacy, learning events, and conferences. Please note that no individual or family may receive these funds in successive years. All awards are reimbursements, and no funds are made available before the event.

Applications should be completed at least 30 days before the event. For questions, send an email to .

Guidelines to Apply for the Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund Definition of Developmental Disabilities A "developmental disability," as defined in federal law, is a severe, chronic, often lifelong disability that causes substantial limitations in several major life activities such as: self-care, receptive and expressive language, learning, mobility, self-direction, the capacity for independent living, and economic self-sufficiency.

It is attributable to a mental, emotional, sensory, and/or physical impairment that is apparent before the age of twenty-two. An individual with a developmental disability. A family member of an individual with a developmental disability.

A guardian of an individual with a developmental disability. How much can I apply for? In order to extend the Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund to as many people as possible, the following limits apply: The Council will provide a maximum of $2,500 for one event per person/family.

A person/family can only be approved for one event within any two-year period. The Council will provide a maximum of $3,500 per event, regardless of how many people apply. This may result in individual applications receiving approval for less than $2,500.

Individuals will not receive reimbursement for expenses to events specifically related to their professions. Employees/service providers are not eligible to apply. What types of events may I attend?

Training in self-advocacy, educating policymakers, and citizen leadership skills. Training to obtain access to services, support, and other assistance. Complete the Dottie Adams Scholarship Fund Application and attach a copy of the brochure/application for the event and a brief summary describing how attending the conference or event will benefit you and/or others.

Applications must be received at least 30 days prior to the event (but no more than three months prior to the event) in order to be considered for approval for reimbursement of expenses. The Council will respond to requests within 10 business days. Applications can be completed here.

What am I required to do and when will I get reimbursed? If you are approved for a reimbursement of expenses, an award letter (your notification), a W9 and a post-event survey will be sent to you. If you have not received a response within 15 business days of mailing in your application, please call to confirm that it was received.

You will only be reimbursed for expenses that have been approved. Accompanying paid receipts must support the reimbursement of expenses. Requests for reimbursements must be submitted within 30 days following the event and must be accompanied by the W9 Forms and the completed post-event survey.

This project was supported, in part by grant number 2001GASCDD-03, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D. C. 20201.

Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.