We built the ride that was not there.
DriveAble began in our own family. An inherited condition runs through three generations of us — it takes your sight slowly, and in time it takes your driving licence, and the working life built around that licence can go with it. Having come that close ourselves, we were not willing to let it happen quietly to anyone else.
So we built the thing that was missing. DriveAble is ride-coordination software — it pools riders heading the same way, holds a promised arrival time, and works by phone call or by screen reader — proved on real roads by a small fleet that has been dispatching trips since August. Riders are never charged. Your gift is what keeps it running and puts the next vehicle on the road.
People who work, and need a way to get there.
Our riders hold down jobs, raise children, keep appointments and run their own errands. What they do not have is a driving licence, because a health condition took it or never allowed it in the first place. Vision loss is where we started and where our expertise runs deepest, and we also carry people through stroke recovery, seizure disorders and treatment that makes driving unsafe.
The existing network was not built with them in mind. Guaranteed paratransit reaches only three-quarters of a mile from a bus route and only during that route's hours. Medical transport covers medical trips. Employment support ends when a case closes, which is the week the commuting starts. None of that is anybody's fault, and all of it leaves the same people standing in the same place.
So we built for the gap rather than around it: shared rides, planned by software, reaching the places a fixed route cannot. Riders are never charged, and nobody is turned away.
Coordination is the thing that scales.
Anyone can drive one person somewhere. The hard part, and the part almost nobody has built, is the software that decides who rides together, in what order, at what hour, and when a trip has to be declined so the rest of the day still works. That is what we made, and it is what your gift keeps running.
The dispatch software
Built in house, for the eyes we serve. It pools riders going the same way, holds a promised arrival time, works by phone call or by screen reader, and logs every request whether we could serve it or not. Trips scale with the fleet. Coordination scales with the platform.
The vehicles that run on it
Today the rides happen in volunteer drivers' own cars, because that is what we have. Every gift moves us toward vehicles the foundation owns, keeps charged and keeps insured, so a rider's Tuesday does not depend on whether a volunteer is free.
The reason it stays free
Riders are never charged. Not a fare, not a co-pay, not a suggested amount at the door. The people in this gap are frequently out of work precisely because they cannot get to work, and a service they cannot afford is not a service. Donations are what make that promise keepable.
It is already running.
We are early and we say so. But the software is not a mockup, and these are not projections. Every line below is a thing the platform did, with the date it did it.
- It dispatches real trips. Live rides have been booked, routed, driven and logged through the platform since 10 August 2026, each one recorded with origin, destination, purpose, distance and time.
- It pools riders, under live conditions. On two separate days, a second request arrived while a vehicle was already on the road. The software weighed the open seat and the extra stop against the route and the arrival time it had already promised, accepted the trip, and one car carried two people to two different places.
- It also says no, correctly. Three times it declined a request whose detour would have broken the day for everyone else aboard, and instead of a dead end it calculated and offered three alternative pickup times. A system that only ever says yes is not coordinating anything.
- It counts the people it cannot help yet. Every request we cannot serve is recorded with where it came from and what it was for. Nobody in Oklahoma has that picture. We are building it from the first day, because you cannot argue for a service on need you never wrote down.
Every dollar goes to the foundation.
Nobody here draws a salary. Not the founder, not the board, not the drivers. There is no office to rent and no marketing budget. What has been raised so far went to incorporating the foundation and securing its 501(c)(3) status, and to the website and email that let anyone find us at all.
That will not be true forever, and we will not pretend otherwise. A service that runs on one family's spare evenings has a ceiling, and getting past it means paying somebody to coordinate rides full time. When that day comes it will be published, in the annual filing every 501(c)(3) has to make public. Until then, every dollar goes to the foundation.
Three generations of the same eyes.
The condition is autosomal dominant optic atrophy, and it runs through three generations of one family. Our founder has it. His father had it, and built a sales career on the road until he could no longer read the signs, memorising the product books so his clients would never have to know. His sixteen year old nephew has it, and will not be applying for a licence.
Our founder does not drive. He does run a foundation, write the dispatch software it uses, and test every screen of it himself — which is why the whole thing works by voice and by screen reader rather than having accessibility added afterwards.
DriveAble exists because the ride he needed did not, and because he was in a position to build one.
Who you are giving to.
- Legal name
- DriveAble Foundation, an Oklahoma not for profit corporation
- Tax status
- 501(c)(3) public charity. IRS determination issued 5 August 2026, effective retroactive to 7 July 2026. Your gift is tax deductible.
- EIN
- 42-3673888
- Registered address
- 218 Cheyenne Rd, Sand Springs, OK 74063
- Governance
- A board with independent authority over budget and compliance. The treasurer is a chief operating officer by profession. See the board.
- Questions before you give
- jerrod@driveablefoundation.org reaches the founder directly.
Put the next car on the road.
The software is built and running. What it needs now is vehicles to dispatch, and every one we add is a morning's worth of commutes that can be planned instead of hoped for. Riders are never charged. Your gift is the reason that stays true.
Prefer not to give money? Volunteer to drive, or tell someone who needs a ride. Both are worth as much.