Topic Category: Essentials

Organizational accessibility work should start from a strong foundation of knowledge and be created with authentic representation from the disability community.

This section of The Hub will help you prepare and establish a strong foundation from which all your accessibility work can grow and thrive. This foundation includes your organizational values, mindsets, and approaches relating to disability, informed by a deep understanding of disability history and culture. It also relies on understanding access as a shared responsibility that isn’t dependent on a single person, program, or department but instead, is integrated throughout every aspect of the organization.

The ways in which you and your team value, understand, think about, and center people with disabilities will directly inform and impact how your organization’s systems, policies, protocols, and procedures are developed and actualized. These actions impact the experience of not only external audiences and patrons, but also your own staff, leadership, and artists, contributing to authentic representation of people with disabilities within your organization. When your foundation is sturdy and sound, there is no limit to what you can build.