For those of us who have participated in a half-century of powerful activism by people with disabilities, a familiar slogan summarizes our call to action: Nothing about us without us.

As a woman of color with a disability and the former executive director of a nonprofit organization serving people with disabilities, I have seen the disconnect between funder strategies and the needs of community-based nonprofits. Quite often, funding does not come with a cultural understanding of the disability community, and this ignorance can impede direct and efficient service. For instance, many organizations in the United States collect wheelchairs and send them to people with disabilities in areas of the world where there are no roads or sidewalks. Inexpensive equipment designed for a paved world barely lasts a few weeks on rough terrain. This altruistic strategy quite literally crumbles when put into practice.

A more effective strategy can be seen in the work of Whirlwind Wheelchair International, an organization based in Berkeley, California, that takes a community-based approach and honors the logistical needs of people with disabilities where they live. Whirlwind Wheelchair brings its expertise into a community, determines what local materials are available, and teaches people to make their own wheelchairs. While addressing a need for dignified independence, the organization provides skills that translate into additional income.

If we want to serve people with disabilities, our work must be directly informed by them. Most of the grantmaking advocates I work with at the Disability Inclusion Fund (DIF) at Borealis Philanthropy are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) with disabilities. To be fully inclusive, we must move beyond a basic understanding that an individual who is blind has different needs than an individual with cerebral palsy.

Read the full article about disability partnerships by Nikki Brown-Booker at Stanford Social Innovation Review.