By Elizabeth Ralston, consultant and founder of the Seattle Cultural Accessibility Consortium

In early 2019, I brought together a group of community members to form the Seattle Cultural Accessibility Consortium, which connects arts and cultural organizations to information and resources to improve accessibility for people of all abilities. We have several workshops per year on accessibility-related topics and help organizations with accessibility planning.

In King County, with almost 2 million people, 9.5% have a disability. That may seem like a small number, but when you consider that 210,000 new people could now participate in a virtual fundraising event, the donor potential is powerful.

As a deaf woman, accessibility is something I deal with every single day. And as a lover of the arts, I decided to do something about the inequities people with disabilities face when trying to enjoy our region’s thriving arts and culture arena.

And now the pandemic has forced us to hunker down, convert our home spaces into work areas, and change the way we communicate with others. Instead of in-person meetings and events, our communication has been transformed through a variety of digital platforms. The Consortium had to quickly adapt to doing our accessibility workshops through virtual platforms and to think about how to make those programs accessible to all.

I also saw organizations scramble to raise money in this new, virtual world we are living in. Fundraisers were quickly being converted to online platforms and accessibility was being left behind.

There is so much potential to engage a largely untapped donor audience — people with disabilities. One in 4 people in our country has a disability.

In King County, with almost 2 million people, 9.5% have a disability. That may seem like a small number, but when you consider that 210,000 new people could now participate in a virtual fundraising event, the donor potential is powerful.

Disabilities can be auditory, visual, cognitive, or physical. They also encompass invisible disabilities such as PTSD, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, etc. Then you’ve got an aging population in this country — by 2030, 1 in 4 people will be 65 and older. And elderly people develop disabilities as they age.

Many of these people could not attend fundraising events in person because of their inaccessibility (lack of accommodations, absence of elevators, difficulty in parking, and more) but now they can attend fundraising events from the comfort of their own homes. People with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty so access to technology can be an issue. Regardless, many desire to make a difference through their time, talents and money.

The upsides of making your fundraisers more accessible

There are two main reasons why fundraising efforts ought to be accessible to people with disabilities:

Planning any kind of program or event should be all-inclusive, benefit everyone and it cannot be piecemeal.

ONE — It makes good business sense.

If you include people with disabilities in your events and make them feel welcomed at your events, they will show up. Their friends, families, colleagues, and circle of supporters will notice, and they will return over and over to support you with their dollars.

TWO — From a universal design perspective, it is the right thing to do.

Planning any kind of program or event should be all-inclusive, benefit everyone and it cannot be piecemeal. Accessibility needs to be integrated within the structure of an organization and that includes every department having a budget line item devoted to accessibility.

So how does one get started in this journey?

Here are 8 ways to make fundraising more accessible for people with disabilities.

1.

Assume people with disabilities will attend your virtual events.

2.

Budget for accessibility. You may have to get your board on board with this. Put a budget line item for all the elements of accessibility that need to be included in your fundraising event: captioning, ASL interpreters, audio description, large print programs, making the website accessible, marketing — and so much more.

3.

Designate an accessibility point person in your organization. If a participant needs an accommodation, make it easy for that person to make the request and for someone to respond to that person.

4.

Make it clear in your marketing materials that there is a way for people to request accommodations.

5.

In slideshows, read all the text and describe the images you are showing. If people have vision issues, they may not be able to see the words or images.

6.

Include a physical description when you first introduce yourself. For example: “Hello, I am Alicia, your auctioneer for tonight! I am Black and have short black hair with a white hat. I am wearing bright red lipstick and a black and white striped dress.” Simple actions like this can really help a person with low vision have an image of who is speaking and in turn make them feel included as part of the festivities.

7.

Provide any written or visual materials in advance in an accessible file format so people know what to expect and can plan ahead.

8.

Outline what will happen so that attendees know what to expect. Some people with invisible disabilities appreciate knowing when there are breaks so they can plan for things like shifting positions, using the restroom, and more. For others, knowing what happens ahead of time helps reduce uncertainty or anxiety.

This is not an exhaustive list and there are more ways to head down this road of including people with disabilities in your fundraising practices. The bottom line is, starting somewhere will help set you in the right direction and yield positive results.

Funders need to be better about including people with disabilities in philanthropy and as fundraisers, it is imperative that you jump on this bandwagon.