Disability Is Not a DEI Issue, It’s a Business Opportunity

The recent and aggressive rebuttal of the corporate DEI movement in North America has inevitably led to much analysis of what its impact will be on the disabled community. However, finding some answers here is complicated by a significant inconvenient truth implicit in the question.

Back in 2023, as we launched our two disability-focused marketing companies (Doable - the first creative agency founded and staffed by talent with disabilities, and the Consumers with Disabilities Research Foundation), we did so having made what seemed like a reasonable assumption: That as the largest minority group in the world, the disabled community would not only command an important place at the corporate DEI table but would be lifted by the essential and long-overdue rising tide of corporate DEI focus, writ large in 2023. We were wrong about this, and herein lies the inconvenient truth.

Despite complete justification to be so, disability was never a meaningful stakeholder in the world of corporate DEI or afforded an appropriate level of representation in the wider DEI movement. And despite efforts from within the disabled community to have an ‘A’ for accessibility added to the DEI initialism, disability remained far less visible than its peers from other similarly under-represented minority groups. These groups were justifiably, and more than that, excellently championed by a rapidly growing generation of corporate DEI leaders, but a generation in which disability representation was hard to find.

Indeed, a 2023 piece in The Boston Globe stated that “While 90 percent of US companies said they have diversity initiatives, only four percent included disability in their diversity programs.”

As much as this was inexplicable, the disabled community and the many companies working in service of those with disabilities (ourselves included) had no real choice but to suck it up and get on with amplifying the awareness of our vast and vibrant community, out-with the wider DEI Revolution.

But in November 2024, the political landscape in North America changed dramatically, and with it, the DEI uplift of recent years found itself under immediate and grave threat. 

Whilst it would be easy to frame it as such, the purpose of this missive is not a political one. Instead, it is to highlight the major impact that the recent retreat of, and from, the corporate DEI movement has had on the disabled community. This being, of course, the self-same corporate DEI movement in which as I’ve outlined, disability demonstrably and substantively played only a very minor part.

Sadly, it appears that the Boston Globe’s mere 4% inclusion of disability in corporate DEI activity on the way ‘up’, is to become fully 100% inclusion on the way ‘down’. Right across the recent news cycle and from assorted press conference lecterns, the message has been clear - disability and accessibility initiatives equal DEI initiatives. Period. And as such, their fate must be the same.

For the disabled community, this upward omission and downward admittance in respect of its relationship with corporate DEI, is the very definition of a ‘Lose/Lose’ situation.

Further to this and from commercial and business perspectives, it’s nothing short of baffling and illogical. This can be seen through the lens of the second assumption we made when setting up our businesses: That the disabled community is a giant, under-engaged consumer group from which significant revenue growth, brand love, and loyalty can be attained if only businesses make the effort to meaningfully and appropriately engage. Why ever would such a valuable group be in any way stigmatized?

The travel industry is just one compelling example of this to put forward. The travellers with disabilities market represents an annualized $58bn industry in the US alone. Including travel companions, this reaches a staggering $100bn. Yet, those destinations here in the US showing genuine intent to capture and care for this under-served segment remain in the minority. Such destinations and businesses not working to accommodate travelers with disabilities are unquestionably missing out on this revenue, and I’d suggest that it’s only a matter of time before these dollars are spent with our international (and better accessibility-equipped) friends and neighbors.

In this segment and numerous others, that such high potential, disability-originated revenue is being ignored in favor of choosing to look the other way while the negativity towards DEI remains uncomfortably front and center is commercially bananas. Not least at a time when economic growth is not only so increasingly hard to come by but is such an important cornerstone of the ambitions of the new administration.

It would be remiss and inappropriate of me not to acknowledge that there are some businesses doing great work with their disability inclusion and accessibility strategies, across their products and services, physical locations, even their advertising – Apple, Microsoft, LEGO and Starbucks, to name four.

But this offers up a final conundrum; each of these businesses has reported on benefitting from their recognition and support of consumers and customers with disabilities, both in terms of revenue and reputation. But they remain the dramatic minority in a country boasting the largest number of companies in the world.

So, for those brands and businesses still in the majority, the message from the disabled community could be no clearer: You help us, and we can help you. Work with your partners and suppliers to provide us with websites and apps we can read, stores we can access, hotels we can sleep in, packaging we can read and open (…and the list goes on). Include us and we’ll enthusiastically and loyally become your customers.

Then, this becomes an opportunity and not a DEI issue at all.

Hugh Boyle is a co-founder at Doable, the first creative agency founded and staffed by talent with disabilities focused on marketing to communities with disabilities, and the Consumers with Disabilities Research Foundation.