Collective Access: An Active Project That Everyone Is Engaged In
July 10, 2025
by s.e. smith
“When we push disability inclusion, and justice, and rights, it benefits members of the philanthropy community,” says Sandy Ho, Executive Director of the Disability & Philanthropy Forum, making the case for integrating disability into the core of philanthropic work. Turning the theoretical need for disability inclusion in philanthropy into meaningful progress requires more than abstract discussion. The Ten Principles of Disability Justice developed by the Sins Invalid collective, designed to offer guidance and solicit participation in service of collective liberation, offers a clear starting point for integrating disability justice values into philanthropic work.
The Forum has explored the cross-movement organizing and interdependence principles this year, and is looking forward this quarter to highlighting the theme of collective access and ways to put it into action before moving into sustainability at the end of year. Understanding these principles is key for supporting not just disability-focused philanthropic work, but all philanthropy — disability is such an important part of cultural and social identity that it touches everything, and active disability inclusion is a net good.
According to the collective access principle, “As brown, black and queer-bodied disabled people we bring flexibility and creative nuance that go beyond able-bodied/minded normativity, to be in community with each other.” This core value underlies the practice of disability justice, and has significant implications for philanthropy, with the potential to shape the internal processes at grantmakers as well as their work with, and expectations of, grantees. Collective access is a reminder that meeting the needs of the disability community is a constantly evolving and important part of these processes, and that these needs evolve and require creative problem solving and collaboration with each other, rather than being one-size-fits-all and top-down. Access also builds and cultivates community as an essential element that fundamentally shapes spaces, not an add-on.
Collective access is also a very clear and straightforward way to approach mutual accountability. It is, by design, about mutuality and being in community together, and the application of collective access, or lack thereof, shows. If funders are thinking about collective access in their work, the results should be concrete, including more expansive funding to disability-led organizations, particularly those who might be overlooked in more traditional grantmaking processes, as well as a better work environment for disabled team members.
In internal interactions, says Ho, one important element of collective access is “what do we all need to make our work better?” That process starts with actively recruiting and hiring a diverse array of disabled staff members who work across departments and roles in the organization. Jobs, support, and professional development opportunities should be provided to disabled people in early-career roles and all the way to the C-suite, ensuring that disabled people are represented in the breakroom and the boardroom. But it can’t stop there. These staffers also need ongoing support in the form of accommodations that reflect active collective projects—and these can go above and beyond the traditional to create a mutually accountable and effective workplace. They should be woven throughout the workplace in every aspect from setting and respecting clear boundaries around communication to setting and modeling policies around work hours and taking appropriate leave.
For example, Ho notes, staff retreats and events often include set meal times with catered foods. These times and foods don’t necessarily work for all disabled staffers, for a variety of reasons, and building flexibility ensures that the biological and social needs of disabled staff are met, whatever those might be, without anyone feeling singled out or awkward. Communicating clearly about this and other access needs during the planning stages also creates opportunities for participants to feel more comfortable offering suggestions and feedback in a climate where leadership and organizers signal that access is important from the start.
Applying collective access to external work can manifest in the form of making sure events are fully accessible, with features such as sign language interpretation and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), as well as offering options for remote and hybrid participation and making sure that physical access includes venues that are easy for disabled people to navigate. Care with access extends to every part of a venue, from creating calm spaces for neurodivergent attendees to confirming that everyone can enter through the front of the building — not the loading dock.
Access isn’t just about making a space welcoming, but actively welcoming people into that space through culture, policies, and practices that foreground disability. Grantmakers can and should take advantage of disabled expertise when holding panels and events, selecting guests for podcasts, and more—and should be aware that expertise includes not only lived experience, but professional experience that may not necessarily center around disability. Many disabled people also experience multiple marginalizations, whether they be disabled adoptees of color or trans disability justice organizers, and bring important lenses to their work.
Funders should also consider how collective access can impact the grantmaking process, as people on both the funder and grantee side may be affected by disabilities. Onerous reporting requirements can feel overwhelming for grantees, for example, while unrealistic deadlines set by highers-up can be unworkable for program officers. Early communication about mutually-workable grant reporting, and flexibility about what that looks like, turns access into an ongoing conversation and collaboration.
In a discussion about creating creative collective access in a primarily queer and trans, Black, Indigenous, and people of color space at the Allied Media Conference in 2010, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes that “crip brilliance” can go a long way. The result is spaces where disabled people build beautiful things together. These collaborations are cherished and have a profound impact on their participants, who in turn carry that experience into the world and apply it to their lives.
Collective access can look radically different depending on the setting and the people involved, but starts with mutual respect, communication, and a genuine desire to collaborate from the start to identify and resolve access issues. Turning access into an active project that everyone is engaged in, and one with mutual commitments, creates a culture that transcends the usual “inclusion” and provision of accommodations as a secondary thought.
About the Author
s.e. smith is a National Magazine Award-winning essayist and journalist with a focus on social issues such as labor organizing, disability, death and dying, feminism, LGBQTIA issues, and cultural analysis.