logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

The Nonprofit Need to Address Discrimination against Those with Disabilities

Ember Urbach
May 1, 2019
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
“Blind person,” Leo Reynolds

April 30, 2019; Fast Company

A recent study indicates that 75 percent of nonprofit boards don’t have anyone with a disability on them, despite 25 percent of Americans having a disability. This contributes to nonprofits’ lack of consideration of things like physical accessibility, language, captioning use, and cognitive accessibility for those who learn and perceive differently.

This carries outside the boardroom as well, with only around nine percent of the nonprofit workforce reporting having a disability, whereas 19 percent of the US workforce as a whole report a disability. RespectAbility, the disability rights group that conducted the survey, found that more than a third of respondents believe internal bias among leadership contributes to this gap. Organizations with even just one disabled employee or board member were nearly twice as likely to recruit more individuals with disabilities. But only 38 percent of organizations recruited inclusively.

Seventy-two percent of people who work in nonprofits believe their organizations are committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and have policies to support that. But RespectAbility’s study shows that many organizations fall short. When organizations do prioritize DEI initiatives, disability often falls far behind race, gender, and sexual orientation. Only 68 percent of DEI policies in the study specifically focus on disability.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ previously covered this topic in 2017, and noted then that:

There is a total of 1.5 million nonprofit organizations registered in the US, most of which likely serve people with disabilities, even though that is not their focus, and they may not even be aware of it. Further, since a number of disabilities are invisible, it’s likely that all organizations serve people with disabilities whether they know it or not.

RespectAbility offers guidelines to improve an organization’s inclusion of people with disabilities, beginning with a change in culture and priorities. Including people with disabilities in all DEI statements, as well as websites and print materials about the organization, lets people with disabilities know they are valued and present in your work. And do not limit organizational understanding of disability to one demographic or one type of disability. Recognize disability from birth, acquired disability, and those “in the closet” with stigmatized or less visible disability.

When people with disabilities are included in planning, leadership, grant writing, and programing, they are able to share their voices and experiences, which matters. The phrase “nothing about us without us,” cited by author James Charlton, means that people with disabilities must be valued as essential contributors to every sector and community, including the nonprofit world. People with disabilities have a perspective that those without do not have—including people with disabilities in leadership roles shines a light on areas that may have been missing before, providing more holistic services, programs, and workplaces.—Ember Urbach

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Ember Urbach

Ember Maselli Urbach is the Director of the Centralized Training Institute at the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network. Ember received her Master’s in Social Work, focusing on social policy and administration, from Florida State University. Ember also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities and a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology. Ember has held various roles in nonprofits at the university level, micro-level in victim services, and now as a director for a network organization. She hopes to continue to learn, educate, and collaborate with her community with the goal of creating a socially justice and inclusive world. Her interest areas include social justice, feminism, queer issues, and domestic violence.

More about: disability rightsManagement and LeadershipNonprofit News

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Racial Justice and Disability Justice: The Complex Journey
Stanfort J. Perry and Nicole Zerillo
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights Movements
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb Plutocracy
Alan Davis
Healing-Centered Leadership: A Path to Transformation
Shawn A. Ginwright
Into the Fire: Lessons from Movement Conflicts
Ingrid Benedict, Weyam Ghadbian and Jovida Ross

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Racial Justice and Disability Justice: The Complex Journey
Stanfort J. Perry and Nicole Zerillo
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights...
Devon Kearney

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.