In June of that year, Peeper founded the IFOPA to facilitate fund raising for FOP research and generally create awareness of the disease.

In the first decade of the 2000s, two more international symposiums were hosted by IFOPA, and other FOP scientific and family meetings were held in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK.

Also in 2010, the Central Florida Chapter of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals named Peeper as winner of the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in founding and establishing the IFOPA.

A gathering of FOP families, supporters, researchers, and pharmaceutical industry representatives was held in Orlando in late 2013 on the 25th anniversary of the Association.

The 2019 Drug Development Forum attracted 154 attendees from 19 countries including researchers, clinicians, biotech and pharmaceutical company representatives, regulators, advocates and people living with FOP.

"[2] In early 2017, IFOPA closed its Orlando office and moved administrative operations to North Kansas City, Missouri.

In addition to the association's own annual appeal, several grants, and traditional family/friends letter drives, the range of family fund raisers includes golf tournaments, barbecues, bingos, auctions, comedy shows, rock concerts, holiday card sales, raffles, suppers, athletic events, and a variety of other social events and receptions.

In 2010, the association established the Jeannie Peeper Heritage Society, a fund raising program that targets major donors and estate giving.

Shore's collaboration with Kaplan led to the discovery of the mutated genes in both FOP and POH Progressive osseous heteroplasia.

In the early 1980s, during his tenure at the National Institutes of Health as Chief of the Human Genetics Branch, he began clinical and basic studies of FOP and helped found the IFOPA with Jeannie Peeper.