I’m David Good. I founded International Friend Connection to create the kind of psychologically safe, real-world community I needed when my own life had collapsed.

For a long time, I was the kind of person people tend not to see clearly.

I was bright, capable, and good at building systems. I was also autistic, chronically ill, socially anxious, and for years, in severe pain. After a car accident and a long stretch of disabling migraines, I lost my software development career. My world got very small.

What I needed was not more theory. It was not another app. It was not more time online.

I needed real people, in real rooms, with enough psychological safety that someone like me could actually walk through the door and stay there.

So I built the thing I could not find.

In 2014, I founded International Friend Connection. It began as one Meetup group in West Michigan. Over time, it grew into a volunteer-powered global community built around a simple idea: belonging is not accidental. If you create the right conditions, people who have spent years isolated can begin to reconnect, often much faster than the world expects. That did not come from theory alone. It came from lived experience, a lot of iteration, and years of paying attention to what actually helps people feel safe enough to show up.

Today, IFC has reached across more than 20 countries, with tens of thousands of members, more than 100 volunteers, and over 5,000 events created to help people build friendship, confidence, and community in real life. We learned something important along the way: online connection matters, but it has limits. Belonging has to be lived, not just discussed.

This work has been recognized in ways that still mean a lot to me, not because awards are the point, but because they confirm the work is real. I have been honored through Points of Light and and received a Presidential Service Medal for voluntary service. I was invited to speak for Cultural Autism Studies at Yale. Meetup CEO David Siegel invited me to represent the global organizer community at Meetup’s 20th Anniversary celebration. Each of those moments mattered because they reflected the same thing back to me: this model works, and it fills a gap that many institutions can identify but cannot solve on their own.

What I care about most is not being impressive. It is building environments where other people can become more fully themselves.

I care about the people sitting at home right now convinced something is fundamentally broken in them. I care about the autistic and neurodivergent people who have ability, insight, and moral seriousness to offer the world but keep getting filtered out by systems that were not designed for them. I care about practical models that reduce isolation before isolation turns into something much worse.

That is the thread through everything I do.

I build belonging systems. I speak about psychological safety, loneliness, autistic intelligence, leadership, and the design of communities that actually work for real human beings. I also teach through The Friend Magnet, where I share values-based frameworks for connection, confidence, and healthier relationships without asking people to become fake versions of themselves.

I am not the exception. I am the proof of concept.

When the right environment exists, people who have been overlooked can build extraordinary things. I have spent the last decade proving that in community rooms, bookstores, coffee shops, online classrooms, and organizer networks around the world. From_Bedridden_to_the_Boardroom…

If my work resonates with you, welcome.

If you are a funder, institution, podcast host, conference organizer, or collaborator, I would be glad to talk.