Disability Belongs

When you donate to Disability Belongs™, you help us eliminate barriers that hold people with disabilities back and redefine harmful narratives. Your support enables us to promote progress by placing individuals with lived disability experience in leadership positions across various fields, including in major companies, public agencies, faith communities, and impactful nonprofit organizations. This ensures authentic representation and equal opportunities for visibility in entertainment, media, public policy, and all aspects of the community. Check out three easy ways you can support our work!

Disability Inclusion Tip 4: If you are an employer, make sure your employees know how to request accommodations. You want all employees to have the tools they need to do their best work! Do you or your organization want to learn more about how to be welcoming and inclusive of people with physical, sensory, cognitive, mental health, or other disabilities? Contact Disability Belongs™! We offer training and consulting that can help you grow and reach your goals. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/ePZAePa8

The Disability Belongs™ Fellowship trains leaders who are committed to disability issues and plan to go into careers in public policy, advocacy, communications, diversity, equity, and inclusion, fundraising, nonprofit management, or faith-based inclusion. The program enables participants to gain skills and contacts while making a positive difference for people with disabilities. Read bios of 10 Fellows in the Fall 2024 cohort: https://lnkd.in/dxF5xS9C

Our Senior Director of Faith Inclusion and Belonging, Shelly Christensen, will be speaking about laying a foundation of accessibility at the 3rd annual NAMI Pathways to Hope conference on August 24! Learn more about the virtual conference and register for free: https://lnkd.in/ek5tAiUD

The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report, “Inequality in 1,700 Popular Films,” found that just 2.2% of all speaking characters in the top 100 films of 2023 were shown with a disability, which is virtually identical to both 2022 (1.9%) and 2015 (2.4%). Learn more about the report's findings, why they matter, and what our organization is doing to increase representation: https://lnkd.in/e2hwVbqE

The Disability Theology 101 Curriculum equips congregations and other faith-based organizations with an educational foundation in disability theology and inclusion. In the 4-part training, participants will engage with theology and disability, ableism, and other obstacles to belonging. Congregations will grow in understanding and learn practices that nurture a community of belonging. This new resource was written by and based on the lived experiences of our Spring 2024 Fellow Angela Molloy, M.Div, a queer and congenitally disabled scholar, activist, and accessibility consultant. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eJKK5E_X

Our third annual Disability Impact Awards ceremony happened in the heart of our Nation's capital on July 11th, 2024! This special event highlighted important individuals who are making strides in fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities. This year's recipients of the Ben Spangenberg and Justin Chappell Memorial Award and the Steve Bartlett Award, Steven McCoy and Lex Frieden, gave their acceptance speeches in front of a crowd of prominent leaders in the disability community. The event also included powerful remarks from our President and CEO Ariel Simms, a celebration of our Chair Emeritus and advisor Steve Bartlett, and the unveiling of our new era as Disability Belongs™. Watch this video to get a taste of the exciting evening. We hope to see you at next year's Awards!

In line with our policy priority of eliminating barriers to work, Disability Belongs™ provides monthly updates on changes in the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate for disabled and non-disabled workers. As you can see in the July 2024 data, there is a big gap to close, with the unemployment rate for disabled working age people double the rate for non-disabled working age people. Learn more about our efforts to close these gaps: https://lnkd.in/eMmfa7vd

In an insightful article by Lauren Brathwaite for Candid, titled "What do we know about nonprofit leaders and staff with disabilities?" Brathwaite delves into the significant issue of the underrepresentation of disabled professionals throughout the nonprofit sector. The article also sheds light on a key challenge we at Disability Belongs™ are working to address through strategic partnerships - organizations' lack of intentionality in purposefully attracting and retaining disabled talent, particularly in public-facing roles and leadership positions. Read full article https://lnkd.in/gu_Jwnsw

Yesterday, we welcomed a new cohort of 11 Fellows to our National Leadership Program at Disability Belongs™! We're very excited to get to work with these future leaders of the disability rights movement. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for when we share more about them!