Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
Breaking Barriers: How Digital Accessibility Can Transform Nonprofit Impact
In this eye-opening conversation, Rebecca Prejean, CEO and founder of EB Graphics Consulting, reveals a critical gap in nonprofit work that's keeping organizations from truly serving their communities. Driven by her personal journey as a mother of a child with autism, Rebecca discusses how 14% of working-age African Americans have disabilities, yet this intersection of race and accessibility remains largely invisible in nonprofit conversations. She explains why accessibility isn't just about inclusion—it's a technical skill set that requires intentional implementation, from ensuring websites work with screen readers to creating truly inclusive workplace environments. Rebecca provides practical starting points for resource-strapped nonprofits, including affordable audit options and free accessibility checkers, while challenging listeners to move beyond virtue signaling to genuine, comprehensive support. This powerful discussion exposes how nonprofits may unknowingly be excluding the very communities they aim to serve, both as clients and team members.
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Non-profits. Are you ready to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact? Save big on Adobe Acrobat Pro, the leading PDF and e-signature tool built for mission-driven work. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash acrobat. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, joined today by Rebecca Prejean, who's the CEO and founder of EB Graphics Consulting. Very excited to dig in with Rebecca today in general, but also because this is a fantastic preview of CauseCamp. Causecamp is coming up November 4th and 5th in Pittsburgh this year. We're so excited Rebecca is going to be on the main stage. Very excited to dig in with her and learn more from her at CauseCamp, but great to dig in and have you on the podcast ahead of that today. Welcome in, Rebecca.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's really exciting. I'm so excited about CauseCamp and being on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:Yes, so good. Okay, so tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to a journey where we're having a discussion around nonprofits today?
Speaker 2:A long journey is what I like to tell people, but in terms of my career and things of that sort, I started working in learning and development, actually probably about we're going on about 12 years at this point, and I've done everything from training to, you know, actually creating curriculum, designing curriculum. Before all of that, I actually was in graphic design as well and I ended up starting my own business about the same time, about 10 years ago, but I got more into accessibility about seven years ago. We're about seven because of my son he will be nine in July, but he has autism and so for me it was a very personal journey as we started to see just how hard it was for him, how hard it was to get resources for him from both his educational perspective as well as nonprofits. And just our family journey. Our family struggle really kind of got me working into different businesses of all types, including nonprofits. Nonprofits are always really good partners for what I do and they're always really open. So that's part of how we got into this discussion about nonprofits.
Speaker 2:But I always like to tell people sometimes the most personal journeys can be the most worthwhile, because without him I wouldn't have the lens that I have about people with disabilities, how they're treated and seeing how they are marginalized and how they are just discriminated against in every corner for us as a family. But it gave me a lot of purpose, it gave me a lot of meaning, and so now me, my company, what we do is we literally evangelicalize people with disabilities to corporate nonprofit, anybody who will listen or give us a chance and it has been. It's been a journey. It's been a long journey but it's been so rewarding.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, your presentation for CauseCamp is entitled Good Isn't Good Enough Bridging the Digital Divide Through Accessibility. So we're definitely going to dig into that at CauseCamp. But one of the things that I saw in kind of the description that you had led or had put in with that and it's where I want to jump off today is that research shows that 14 of working age african americans have a disability of some sort, and I'm going to tell you the. The statistic kind of hit me, because that's not something that we're talking about ever, right I? This is not a conversation that I've heard about how much it's impacting especially communities of color, and what are we doing about it. My guess is very little, but but yeah, so let's jump in and have this conversation, because it's clearly not having happening anywhere else.
Speaker 2:It's always an interesting dance is what I tell people, especially for nonprofits, because nobody starts a nonprofit and says I'm going to start this organization and be another hurdle for people to jump over or another wall or another barrier. Nobody starts a nonprofit.
Speaker 1:We all have the best intentions.
Speaker 2:Yes, we all start with what I want to help people. I want to make a difference, but that means that we have to be talking about all of the things. We all start with what I want to help people. I want to make a difference, but that means that we have to be talking about all of the things. It can't always be everybody every time, all the time. We really do sometimes have to parse it down and say what is happening over here, and I think that's part of the reason we're not having that conversation about African Americans and how disabilities are really impacting them, how accessibility impacts them even more so, because another statistic that is really jarred is that 22, around 22% of African Americans with a disability are less likely to be employed. Wow. So when you really start to get down into some of these numbers, it is clear we're not having the conversations we need to have around color, around disability, around digital accessibility. We're just not having these conversations. And you know, megan, you and I were talking earlier and I'm going to be a bit personal here.
Speaker 2:As a woman of color who lives in the South and has a child with a disability, I will say part of our problem is community related. We don't talk a lot about disabilities in our community. Sometimes we shy away from them. My parents were much older my dad will be 80 in July, to give you some perspective when I suspected that my son was autistic. I suspected it probably about one, one and a half that he was autistic, and I remember my mom saying there's nothing wrong with that child, he's absolutely fine. And it wasn't an encouragement, it was fear that I heard in her voice.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of fear about what that means as a person of color, if you are labeled as having a disability and so our community, rather than talk about the ways we can support in a lot of times, rather than try to look at this from a different lens, we really do look at it as something to be fearful of, something to I don't want to say shun or admonish, but something to just really be avoided at all costs. And there's some truth to that right, because once you are labeled as having a disability, there's other difficulties that come with that on top of already being a person of color, and so it's a little bit more scary in some ways. But it's part of the reason we're not having a conversation. We really have to step past the fear and step into the realization that just because you have a disability does not mean that you are less than. It might mean that you have different supports that are needed.
Speaker 2:It might mean that you need some different therapies. It might mean that you live a life that looks a little different from everybody else, but nobody's life looks the same. Sure, exactly. If it does, we should be really concerned. But it's like everybody has a difference in some way in their lives, and it's not saying that you're less than. It's not saying that you don't matter. It's not saying that you're not smart. It's just saying you might have a slightly different life, but there's usually ways that we can support that and give you the best life possible I.
Speaker 1:So I'm really excited to dig into this, because I do think that this is a thing we're not talking about enough and and acknowledging right that it's. At times there are plenty of barriers just being a person of color in certain scenarios. So feeling like you are adding on to that, it kind of makes it the double whammy. So I understand the hesitancy, it's unfortunate and I, good Lord, I wish we weren't still in a place where that was a problem, but I definitely understand the hesitancy. So I think and I'm going to take this strictly from my white girl perspective, right Understanding that that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes, again, when we set out to start a nonprofit, we want to do good, we want to change the world, we want to impact this particular community or this particular area, this particular community or this particular area, but we and I think this is true regardless of skin color we tend to approach everything from our own perspective, right, and we might tend to think about, maybe, somebody who is a different color, different nationality, different gender, different sexual orientation, different whatever, and yet the accessibility, the disability conversation does not tend to factor in, especially when we're talking about diversity, and so that's the thing that struck me as you were talking is like we talk about diversity, we have all these conversations about diversity and inclusion without necessarily recognizing that there's a whole population being excluded from the conversation because they're you know, we don't tend to think of that as diverse. That's a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, what I also like to tell people who kind of ask me about, like DEI and accessibility and we have these conversations. I like people to kind of understand a few things, but the main thing is that DEI, yes, it is a practice, yes, it is a concept, yes, it is all of these things and it is a belief system. I want people to start looking at accessibility, though, as a skill set, because accessibility requires a lot more technical acumen than I think people realize, especially when we're talking about digital accessibility, because it's not just making sure people are included, it's actually knowing how to make the things accessible and make them so that they're inclusive. No-transcript, I have layers that people can actually click on and can be triggered to maybe strip out some of the extra. There is a skill set, a technical skill set, to accessibility, and so there's always people and I understand it people get very scared when we start talking about accessibility as something kind of separate or, you know, in any way not related to DEI. It is related, they are very related.
Speaker 2:But there's another component to accessibility that I think a lot of people miss, especially nonprofits, you know, and didn't mean to segue. Yeah, no, it's great, but it's like nonprofits, miss it because on their websites, people can't read it with a screen reader. Whoa, you know. So who is blind or who has, like, a visual need for accessibility, wants to donate. They want to get involved, they want to do these things for you. A screen reader has never, probably even been run on your website. So you're closing that door, you're closing that lane and that avenue for people, people who want to get help, that might have visual accessibility needs. They can't get help because your website doesn't have that part of the puzzle, and so I've really started to try to get people to see yes, these things are related and we should talk about them in relation to each other because it is inclusivity. But part of that equity, part of that inclusion, requires a skill set, a technical skill set that has to be present.
Speaker 1:So I can imagine that there are folks listening at this point who are maybe executive directors, head of development, their program directors, who are all going yeah, but I don't even know. These are not things I've ever thought of, so I don't know where to start. Right moment of like, I don't. I have no idea if my website can be read by a screen reader. I have no idea, can I? You know? I don't know if the videos that I'm putting out for training are accessible and actually able to to manage or be managed by different disabilities. Where do we start to to fix this problem?
Speaker 2:What I tell people is I know nonprofits don't have a ton of money, Correct, so that gets to be a little scary because it's like I want to do these things but I have, like you said, no, I have no idea where to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2:I had a problem until two minutes ago and now, I've got a ton of them, yeah, and I don't have a bunch of money to hire a consultant to fix it. Completely understand. Many people are in this situation. Got to start somewhere, though, yes, and so I don't want to say hire a consultant, but hire a consultant, yeah, there are tons of us that are out there. We don't necessarily live only in nonprofit land, we live in other places, and there are also varying degrees of cost. Some people will just do an audit, for example, like I do, like a 500 audit. Um, it's probably the cheapest thing that I offer. Most accessibility, consultants will at least give you an audit, which will then, you know, give you a blueprint of where to go, and that cost in and of itself, that $500, $200 in some cases is enough to actually give you the map of what you should be looking at and where you need to go. If you're like Rebecca I'm a small nonprofit I don't even have the $500. I don't have $200. I've got nothing. Perfectly fine, go online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there are 20 of accessibility checkers for you. I will say avoid AccessiBe. Focus on Wave, which is a really, really good platform, but it can run your website and, if nothing else, show you where you're really at. It will be able to show you is this a problem? How big of a problem am I in? How big of a hole am I in? And, to me, that's the best starting point, especially for nonprofits. There's so many things nonprofits can look at, including their internal training, external resources, all of these things. First thing I think that they should look at, though, is their website, because you need to think, before they even get to these things, before they get to these resources, are they even able to get to the meat of what we do, to understand how we can actually help?
Speaker 1:we can actually help. If you want to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact, we have the solution for you. With Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can streamline reports, speed up contracts with e-signatures and create polished PDFs that inspire donors and engage volunteers. Work smarter with cloud access, top-tier security and powerful editing tools designed for teams on a mission. And with special nonprofit pricing it's efficiency you can afford. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash acrobat. I would assume that if I'm a small nonprofit that, for example, offers services to the blind community, that I'm going to be thinking about that in spades. Right, but again, it's broadening. This whole conversation calls us to broaden the way that we think, because we think we know who needs our services and we're forgetting that there could be all sorts of other people, because it doesn't just have to be a physical disability like that.
Speaker 1:There are plenty of cognitive like that, there are plenty of cognitive issues that folks are struggling with and we tend to not think about that, and so I think maybe the the first takeaway, too before before you all panic, is just to to broaden that thinking and realize because and again that's why I'm really glad we're having this conversation we don't tend to talk about it, especially the cognitive, and so it's easy to forget that those folks are in the community of people that you're serving.
Speaker 2:They are part of the communities. Whether or not we talk about them is almost irrelevant, because it doesn't mean that they don't exist. It just means that we're not having that particular discussion.
Speaker 2:They're going to be there regardless and, as you pointed out, cognitive disabilities are really really important and they continue to be increasingly common yes, increasingly common, and so for some people I want you to think that's an almost slightly easy, cheap fix, because you usually have your web designers on staff. Those are the people that can fix things, some of the things for cognitive disabilities. So it's not asking people to spend a ton of money to at least get started. It is asking, like you said, to broaden these conversations, broaden these thought processes that we have, because you really do have people who they want to engage, they want to support, they want to get involved in your nonprofits, your organization, support your cause, especially in a world right now where people are needed in nonprofits, but they can't make that step if you're not even thinking about them or the things that they need to get through the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm just thinking, so I'm going to play on an example, because I'm thinking about let's talk about maybe a nonprofit that is, a homeless shelter Right, I would imagine? Right, I would imagine right that you know the issue that you think you're focused on is homelessness, but there are so many of the folks who are in unhoused communities that are struggling with both physical and cognitive impairments and handicaps and disabilities. I would hope that those folks are already thinking about that, right, instead of just being like short-sighted to think the problem is only homelessness. It has to be bigger. I think that's an example, for me at least, where I could say we've really got to make sure that we're reaching all of the pieces of someone because we want them to be able to get the help that they need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want them to be helped, we want them to be supported, but it goes, like you said right, it goes beyond homelessness, it goes beyond color, it goes into disability and I looked up fun facts today before we did this, to be honest with you, because I was working on my cause camp thing but 51% of African-Americans with a disability are more likely to also experience poverty. So when you talk about that example, it really does hit home Like you're not just dealing with the part that you can see. You are dealing with some things that are truly, truly, truly deep and important and necessary to talk about in your organizations, and that's why it's so important that people understand what accessibility really is, because we can talk about it all day. You know, I'm glad we're having this conversation, we can talk about it all day. But if you never implement anything other than, let's say, captions and I'm not knocking captions because they are helpful, good idea well, like helpful and good idea.
Speaker 2:But it goes beyond that. Yeah, and I never want to lose sight of it, goes beyond those things. It goes beyond the captioning, it goes beyond the transcripts. Those are easy wins and I encourage anyone who's not doing them to do them, because they're so easy to win, especially now with AI, and you know, being able to generate a lot of things fairly quickly know being able to generate a lot of things fairly quickly. But there's also other things that we have to look at. We have to look at how we are building our things, how we are building our processes, how we are building our structures to make sure that we see these people, because they're there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not just there in the people that we're serving. They're on our teams, right. They might not be raising their hand and disclosing that. They might not, you know, it might not be an obvious thing that they're struggling with, but there are so many, even just you know, they call them the silent illnesses, right when people are suffering with all sorts of different things and they might not disclose that. But even thinking about how we create a workplace so that everybody is cared for and everybody has the ability to do their job effectively, it has to be on both sides hey guys, they walk among us so it's like they're with us every day.
Speaker 2:They may not, like you said, feel comfortable disclosing that, because there are a lot of difficulties that can sometimes come with that disclosure, whether it's in a nonprofit or in a corporate environment, but they are on your teams, they are leading your teams in some cases. These are things we have to talk about. You want more effective leaders, because that's always a conversation lately, right, like I want my leaders to be more effective. Accessibility is how you get there, because, again, you're going to be able to give them the things they need to be able to function at their peak right, and then that makes them a better leader, which gives you better teams, which makes everything run more smoothly. They're in your team, sitting there thinking I want to do my best work, but they can't because we're not giving them the things that they need. It's a conversation we've got to start having in nonprofits, and I always like to tell a story.
Speaker 2:I used to work for a nonprofit back in the day and won't name which one, and it's not on my LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Don't go looking at the LinkedIn, try to be messy but they really touted hiring people with disabilities and I worked in their learning and development department. Not once did we ever go through an accessibility check. Not once did we ever talk about people with disabilities like using our training internally, like this is for internal staff never talked about it. But we always talk about how we hire people with disabilities, how we support that community, and to me I was like there's such a disconnect there, a complete and utter break of just reality, when we can talk about how we are proud to hire them and give them a chance, but we're not actually giving them a full chance at a full realization because we're not giving them the support they need in training. It's like there's a lot of nonprofits that are like that we want to help people that are disabled, we hire people that are disabled. We focus on making sure that that group is seen, and right now there might be somebody who's like well, we make sure they're seen.
Speaker 1:Are you really making sure that they're seen in every way, in every lens within your organization is the question that has to be asked yeah, I think that's a really valuable call out because I think it's easy to it's like anything else right, it's easy to virtue signal, it's easy to to like kind of wash over and tout our like, but when it comes to the actual practical reality of doing people see, especially your internal organization will see through that and immediately. And nothing is going to deflate morale faster. Because if you are somebody with a disability that walks in going, look at this they're so proud of, of the fact that they support this community, at this they're so proud of of the fact that they support this community, and then I actually don't get the support I need, that's going to ruin reputations real quick ruins reputations, it destroys morale, yeah, and it it hurts your retention yeah, like nobody's gonna want to stay with If they're like.
Speaker 2:you promised me one thing and I'm getting this on the back end, getting asked questions, like in my annual review, about why I'm not doing X or why I'm not doing Y. But the real problem, the crux of the issue, is that you guys didn't provide me with what you said you would.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Rebecca, this has been so good and I cannot wait to hear more from the CauseCamp stage. If this conversation has somebody going, okay, but how do I? I don't know where to start. I need to talk to a consultant. I'm interested in doing the audit. How do we find you? What's the best way to connect and reach out with?
Speaker 2:I would say absolutely. Talk to me. I'm not a hard sale person. That's not what I do. So even if I'm not a fit, I can help, at least guide you in the right direction. But I'm always available via email. Rebeccaprajan at ebgcnet. You can also, if you're like Rebecca I have no idea how to spell your last name Perfectly fair Reach out to me via LinkedIn. You can type in EV Graphics and Consulting, or even just type in my name and I'm the only one that pops up. Those are really the two main ways that people can reach me. I'm always looking at the email completely unhealthy, but I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:We're going to work on those boundaries. It's going to be great. If you need to know more about Rebecca's session, you can head over to our cause camp website as well, which is causecamp. You can click there and find the whole list of speakers and all of their sessions. You can see how to spell Rebecca's last name. If that's helpful to you, make sure that you can get in contact with her, but definitely make sure that you join us at cause camp. We want to see you there so that you can continue to learn from all sorts of industry professionals, just like Rebecca. As we wrap up, the question that I've been asking everyone in this season is if you could give one piece of advice or encouragement to nonprofit leaders. What would that be? What's your parting wisdom for today? Your parting?
Speaker 2:wisdom for today. Somebody has to do the work, and work is not always pleasant, work is not always fun I mean, that's just the way that life is but somebody has to do the work. It is not an easy time right now for nonprofits. It's not an easy time for the EI focused organizations. It is not an easy time. It's work. Yeah, you have to do the work so that people can continue to get the things that they need, because without you, without that work, you leave as we've talked about this whole time a whole swath of people just completely unseen, completely unsupported and just completely unhelped, and that's not what anybody started their organization for. So remember that, even right now, where it just feels like it is impossible, it is crazy, it is. I just want to stop. The work is the work and you've got to do the work and there's always something good that comes out of the work, like when you do the work, good things happen. So keep doing the work, y'all.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you so much, Rebecca. This has been a fantastic discussion. I really appreciate all of your wisdom that you had to share, and I think it's going to be a really important conversation for nonprofits across the board. So thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to see everybody Again. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub podcast with our guest, Rebecca Prejean, who's the CEO and founder of EB Graphics and Consulting. My name is Megan Spear. We'll see you next time.