Dr. Timothy Shriver

Tim Shriver is the Chairman of Special Olympics, the founder of UNITE.US, and the co-creator of the Dignity Index.

During Tim’s more than 30 years of leadership of Special Olympics, a global movement for inclusion and dignity, he grew the organization to include over 4 million athletes in more than 200 countries. Together with all of them, he helped create over 50,000 games a year in villages, cities, refugee camps, mountains, and more. He has also led Special Olympics to become the world’s largest public health organization for people with intellectual disability, the world’s largest community of self-advocates and leaders with intellectual disability, and the world’s largest school-based program for social inclusion.

Before joining Special Olympics over 30 years ago, Tim was an educator in New Haven, CT, where he joined with an extraordinary group of scholars and educators to create the field of social and emotional learning. In 1994, Tim co-founded and chaired the most influential organization in the world of SEL, The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

In 2017, Tim launched a new effort to promote the dignity and common humanity of every citizen, UNITE.US. Gathering citizen leaders, as well as those from the worlds of politics, religion, business, education, entertainment, and more, UNITE has championed an emerging dignity movement dedicated to creating a culture where the dignity of each person is seen and welcomed. A central focus of UNITE’s work is to promote the skills and values revealed by the Dignity Index—a new tool to help Americans disagree without demonizing each other. In that same spirit, UNITE helped launch The Office of American Possibilities, a creative incubator of social innovation, and Be The People, a national campaign to reveal the best of the American spirit.

Over his career, Shriver has produced several films—including Amistad, The Loretta Claiborne Story, The Ringer, Front of the Class, As Far As They Can Run, and Peanut Butter Falcon. He is the author of the NYT bestseller Fully Alive – Discovering What Matters Most and co-editor, with his friend and colleague Tom Rosshirt, of The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening. He has been awarded honorary degrees from more than a dozen universities, including Georgetown, Villanova, and Fairfield. In 2026, Tim was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame.