ICYMI: Taking the Disability Inclusion Pledge: A progress report on PEAK’s journey
From PEAK Grantmaking: In early 2022, PEAK Grantmaking signed the Disability & Philanthropy Forum’s Disability Inclusion Pledge, a call to the entire philanthropic sector “to recognize that ableism—the systemic stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities—is a core barrier to equity and inclusion,” asking organizations to “commit to a continuing learning and implementation process that will advance systemic change … and serve as models for disability inclusion in the philanthropic sector.”
To support pledge signatories, the Forum created an action-planning framework, best-practice recommendations, and in-depth resources to support organization-wide adoption of accessibility practices across eight action areas—including disability-inclusive language, accessible events, team training and participation, inclusion audits, measurement, and reporting. Over the past year and a half, the PEAK team has tapped into those resources to embark on a staff learning journey that centers the perspectives of disabled people and to implement changes to improve accessibility across our platforms, policies, and practices.
Recognizing that we have much work ahead, we hope that these highlights of what we’ve learned thus far along our continuous learning journey will encourage you and your organization in joining us in advancing disability equity and inclusivity.