What do we know about nonprofit leaders and staff with disabilities? 

As we highlight the skill, talent, and resilience of people with disabilities—through Disability Awareness Month in July, the Invictus Games and Paralympics this summer, and National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October—it’s fitting to examine what Candid data suggests about their representation and visibility in the nonprofit sector. 

Candid’s The state of diversity in the U.S. nonprofit sector report analyzes the demographics of staff, leaders, and board members, based on data from 59,550 U.S. public charities on their Candid profiles. Here we’ll focus on the findings as well as additional insights into data on nonprofit staff and leaders with disabilities. 

Nonprofit staff with disabilities may be underrepresented across the sector 

The disability status of many individuals in the data set is unknown, particularly at the staff level, which suggests that this information is either not collected by organizations or not disclosed by employees. Of those who did respond, 15% of all staff and roughly 10% of those in leadership roles identified as having a disability. 

“People with disabilities are still often left out in terms of targeted recruitment at all levels, particularly for leadership positions. There are many reasons for this, including a lack of an adequate pipeline of folks with disabilities in the workforce. If you don’t hire, train, mentor, and provide leadership opportunities to people with disabilities at all levels then you will not have an adequate pool to hire from,” said Nikki Brown-Booker, program officer for Borealis Philanthropy’s Disability Inclusion Fund. “Also, when you do have a qualified applicant, they are often overlooked….Employers are still not looking for or towards people with disabilities as viable candidates as good employees, which is simply shortsighted and based on their own ableism and ableist hiring practices.” 

The findings would suggest that further research is needed to explore why disability information is not being gathered, the potential barriers to disclosure, and how organizations can create environments that encourage sharing such information.  

Nonprofit leaders with disabilities are largely absent from large nonprofits 

The report finds that while 10% of nonprofits have CEOs with disabilities, representation declines with organizational size (by expenses)—from 20% of the smallest nonprofits to 3% of the largest. 

“The striking disparity suggests that nonprofit leaders with disabilities may face barriers in scaling their organizations and in being hired for roles at larger nonprofits,” said Anna Koob, senior lead researcher at Candid. “There may be systemic obstacles that make it difficult for these leaders to exert influence in the nonprofit sector. This imbalance calls for a reexamination of support systems and funding opportunities to improve representation and equity for CEOs with disabilities.” 

The report’s results imply that there are systemic barriers, which may include biases in hiring and promotion processes, a dearth of accessible environments, and insufficient support or accommodations for individuals with disabilities.  

“When we, disabled people, are supported by an inclusive workplace culture, it means our lived experiences and communities are reflected in the work,” said Disability and Philanthropy Forum executive director Sandy Ho. “It also means our collective perspectives are valued within an organization. It requires our workplace policies and culture combined to support the career trajectories of future leaders and CEOs with disabilities. It is about saying we welcome your expertise and experiences as a disabled person as a value add rather than just a diversity tick box.” 

People with disabilities represent a small but present proportion of board members 

The report notes that people with disabilities hold a small but visible presence on nonprofit boards. Across organization size, on average, nonprofit boards have five members without a disability and fewer than one with a disability. The relative percentage of board members with disabilities, however, decreases slightly in larger organizations due to the increased size of their boards. Larger boards generally do not proportionally increase the number of individuals with disabilities, exacerbating their underrepresentation in governance roles.  

Disability Belongs president and CEO Ariel Simms points out the need for more inclusive recruitment and retention strategies to ensure that boards reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. 

“This lack of prioritization [of diversity] leads to missed opportunities to include valuable perspectives that can drive more effective and equitable decision making. Additionally, physical and attitudinal barriers, such as inaccessible meeting spaces and assumptions about capability, further limit access to and participation of people with disabilities in leadership roles, including lay leadership.”  

More research is needed on nonprofit staff with disabilities in the sector 

Simms would also like to see more inclusive practices for nonprofit board recruitment, such as targeted recruitment, creating accessible environments, providing accommodations, and fostering inclusion, as well as educating current members on the value of diverse perspectives. 

“By making these changes, nonprofit organizations can better serve their communities and ensure that diverse perspectives are considered in their decision-making processes,” they said. “Nonprofits can partner with the disability community, including disability-led groups and organizations, that can leverage both lived experience and subject matter expertise in their support.” 

Ho emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the presence of nonprofit staff with disabilities within nonprofit organizations. “The information that is shared in this report is crucial, and we should also remember that whether the tools to measure disability demographics are being implemented, disability likely is present among our staff’s lived experiences and the communities that we work with each day,” she said. 

Photo credit: Koh Sze Kiat via Getty Images