Current status: NDCP is inactive with no plans for revival. This site describes an example organisation, not current operations. Details.
Compassion should not require low expectations. High expectations should not become an excuse to withhold support.
Purpose and spirit
NDCP concentrates on autistic adults with low support needs: people with the potential for greater independence who lack the right combination of opportunity, practical support and confidence. It aims to build lives in which autistic people can work, form relationships, contribute, make choices and sustain themselves as far as they are able. It also answers the question every caregiver eventually asks: what happens when I am no longer here? The answer combines stronger autistic capabilities with relationships, professional partnerships and practical arrangements beyond the household.
NDCP draws its spirit from the founding spirit of modern Singapore: prefer pragmatism to ideals; stay united rather than divided; pursue prosperity together; and expect everyone, autistic people included, to take responsibility for their part. Small but Mighty is the working expression of that spirit. A useful idea does not need a large institution, a prestigious title or a major grant. It needs people who combine what they have with what partners already possess.
Partnership
Partnership Equality is the basis of every NDCP relationship. Four groups share the work: autistic people; families and caregivers; service and opportunity providers, including researchers; and government and public institutions. None has complete knowledge and none receives unlimited authority by belonging to its category. Rights, responsibilities and support go together.
Partnerships are open to established institutions, small groups and independent contributors alike. A researcher does not need to belong to a preferred university. An employer does not need to subscribe to every position in autism advocacy. A caregiver does not need to agree with an autistic adult on every issue before contributing useful knowledge. What counts is the specific work, relevant competence, evidence, conduct and a willingness to share responsibility. My notes on who to partner for autism work explain the judgement involved.
Openness is not indiscriminate. NDCP declines work that is unsafe, dishonest, beyond its capacity or dependent on coerced participation, and it gives reasons that relate to the work rather than to rivalry, loyalty or ideological conformity. Collaboration on one project is not endorsement of everything a partner does.
Principles
1. Self-sustaining
The core has a membership-supported baseline, a manageable budget, recorded responsibilities and more than one person able to maintain each essential system. Suitable grants and donations, including reviewed multi-year funding, can support continuing shared capacity as well as specific projects. This can preserve relationships, knowledge and the ability to help without repeatedly rebuilding them through short projects. Additional commitments need agreed outcomes, full-cost review and a workable response to withdrawal or non-renewal; no single funder should control the community’s direction.
2. Wholesome
Honesty, reciprocity, reliability, self-restraint, courage, care and willingness to repair harm underpin community life. Leaders are chosen for integrity and authenticity, not charisma or credentials alone. These are conduct expectations, not a compulsory religion, political position or lifestyle. People may express distress and disagree forcefully; threats, humiliation, manipulation and harassment are not excused by sincere feelings.
3. Equality includes responsibility
Autistic people are partners in creating change, not spectators waiting for others to act. Organisers make expectations clear and provide reasonable support. Participants respect consent, communicate difficulties where they can and take responsibility for choices within their capacity. Inclusion is not unconditional: reasonable expectations apply to everyone. Support is an investment in a life, not charity, and the return may be a livelihood, a stable home, better health, fewer crises or a person making more of their own decisions. Where someone can develop greater competence, repeatedly taking over preserves dependence instead of providing support.
4. Community at the centre
Autistic people and caregivers are at the centre of the organisation. Professionals, researchers and policymakers are valued partners, not its owners. The community must be able to outlive any founder, funder or agency and keep working for autistic adults after their caregivers are gone.
5. Pragmatic
NDCP does what it can do today rather than what it would do with ideal funding. It studies people who have already solved similar problems. It prefers win-win agreements to combative advocacy that leaves everyone worse off, while keeping the option to refuse a proposal, remove authority, support lawful redress or end a partnership. A person facing abuse owes the other party no mediation, forgiveness or education.
6. Evidence can change our methods
Established and unconventional approaches face the same questions: what changes, for whom, at what cost and with what harm? An unfamiliar approach may enhance, complement or replace a familiar one when comparative evidence supports it. Commitment to the mission does not require loyalty to a method.
7. Functioning and identity are not enemies
Improving communication, adaptability, health, emotional regulation and daily living is a legitimate aim. Autistic people need not reject their identity to want fewer limitations, nor make autism central to their identity to belong here. Success is useful improvement in the person’s life, not appearing non-autistic.
8. Roles require competence
Lived experience informs decisions; it does not supply financial, scientific, safeguarding or management expertise by itself. Professional qualifications do not confer ownership of someone else’s priorities either. NDCP pairs autistic decision-making with complementary skills and prepares members for real responsibility through practice, feedback and accountable work.
Back the contribution, honour the commitment
A community should invest in the capability it hopes to receive. Funding, mentoring, paid work, introductions and dependable practical help are concrete forms of backing. Encouragement does not supply the same resources.
An adult accepting a fair funded commitment should honour it. An organisation should deliver the funding, preparation and opportunity it promised. Neither side should take the benefits while transferring every responsibility to the other.
Substantial awards and entrusted roles would depend on relevant conduct, capability and the proposed work, not gratitude, publicity or agreement with the organisers. Deliberate evasion and serious boundary violations require action; needing assistance or reasoning differently does not establish either.
The community-bond proposal gives this relationship a defined form. People with no service commitment, and those who have fulfilled theirs, remain free to build lives elsewhere. Their departure is not automatically a failure of community or a refusal of all contribution.
Name and logo
NDCP is “NeuroDivergent” for two reasons. Most autistic adults also live with other conditions, and support should follow needs rather than a single diagnostic label. Many people are also unwilling to identify publicly as autistic because insurers, employers and media still treat the label as a liability. The name lets them participate on the basis of their needs. The focus remains autistic people, especially adults with low support needs; a clinical study may still require a particular diagnosis.
The logo is a key. The purple infinity symbol stands for the infinite potential of autistic people. The blue ring stands for the protection that non-autistic partners and allies provide. The yellow lightning stands for the solutions and breakthroughs the partnership creates. Together they unlock potential.
The lightning recalls Benjamin Franklin’s 1752 kite experiment. A self-taught man with little formal schooling, ridiculed by some of his peers, turned a bold experiment into the lightning rod, a cheap invention that still protects buildings today. That is Small but Mighty: a person and an idea changing what is possible.
Reviewed 5 October 2026. Links to other websites open in a new tab.