Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles (ONCE)

The ONCE was founded in 1938 in response to the needs of blind people and to provide them with access to decent work through the sale of lottery tickets. The first draw was held in 1939 and since then the ONCE has continued to strive day by day to improve the quality of life of blind people in Spain and to contribute to their self-reliance and full inclusion in the community. Accordingly, the sole purpose of the entire revenue obtained by the ONCE from lottery sales is to achieve the Institution's sustainability in order to continue with its community work in favour of blind and severely visually impaired people in Spain.

However, the ONCE's commitment to blind and severely visually impaired people also extends to people with other disabilities. In 1988 the ONCE Foundation for Cooperation and the Social Inclusion of the Disabled (other disabilities) was created with the aim of achieving universal accessibility, training and the full integration into the workplace of disabled people. In the early 1990s the ONCE undertook the creation of various social economy enterprises which, under the brand name ILUNION (the ONCE business group), have shown that blind people and people with other disabilities can work in all kinds of jobs and business sectors. Together, the ONCE, the ONCE Foundation and ILUNION form the ONCE SOCIAL GROUP, which currently employs around 73,000 people, approximately 60% of whom have some kind of disability. This makes it Spain’s fourth largest employer and the world's leading employer of disabled people.

Specifically, around 23,000 people currently work for the ONCE, approximately 90% of whom have some kind of disability. Its main sales channel comprises a workforce of approximately 20,000 salespersons who are all employees of the organisation and have some kind of disability. The ONCE allocates all the resources generated by lottery sales to its work in three main areas: job creation, education and access to information, and personal autonomy. To carry out this social work, the ONCE employs more than 1,700 professionals located across the country: teachers, psychologists, social workers, rehabilitation specialists, tiflotechnology instructors, socio-cultural monitors, service managers, etc.

In 2019 the ONCE earned revenues amounting to €2,255 million from its lottery sales. Thanks to these revenues it was able to allocate €228.5 million to its social activities: 7,413 blind and severely visually impaired children were cared for during the school year as part of the educational inclusion services and within the package of measures designed to ensure personal autonomy; 74,369 volunteer services were provided; and 6,637 blind persons received training aimed at learning Braille and/or the use of information technologies adapted for the visually impaired. 3,202 disabled persons benefitted from the use of 6,205 tiflotechnical equipment sets and 14,969 actions were carried out by the Rehabilitation Service (ophthalmology, rehabilitation and optics). 5,597 socio-cultural and sports activities were held in which 143,309 visually impaired persons took part, and 2,526 places on Social Holidays for the Elderly with serious visual impairment were taken up. 9,535 users accessed the ONCE Digital Library which has over 50,000 adapted books, and 131 guide dogs were handed over.