As a disabled person who has focused her career on disability advocacy, the PEAK2023 session “Let’s Talk About Disability Inclusive Grantmaking” stuck with me in a multitude of ways, namely in how it illustrated that people with disabilities can take up space and thrive in a field that was not built for us.

The panel was organized by five disability advocates within the philanthropy field: Gail Fuller, the senior director of communications and programs at the Disability & Philanthropy Forum; Charlotte Haase, communications and data manager at Maryland Philanthropy Network; Mareeha Niaz, director of programs at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO); Rachele Tardi, senior program officer at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Kristy Trautmann, executive director at FISA Foundation.

Systemic ableism is pervasive and ingrained within the philanthropy world, from the grant application process to allocation of funds to the (lack of) disabled staff and board members at foundations and grantmaking organizations. “So often, I hear funders say, ‘We don’t do disability,’” Trautmann said. And the statistics Fuller presented corroborated Trautmann’s lived experience: only one penny every 10 grantmaking dollars goes towards disability rights and disability justice. “I find that people are afraid to say the word disability,” Haase added. Disabled and disability are neutral descriptors, a point that was continually emphasized throughout the session, but Haase brought an important point to the forefront of the conversation. If people are afraid to name disability, how can the philanthropy world move to true inclusion and system change?

In order to achieve systemic change, Tardi mentioned the importance of using a disability justice lens in the work on disability. “As a foundation focused on health equity and on dismantling barriers to health caused by structural racism,” she said, “Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been learning about how to include disability justice principles as a guide in our work, recognizing the leadership of people with disabilities and their different identities”.

Read the full article about disability inclusion by Leah Craig at PEAK Grantmaking.