Saying it made a major mistake by overlooking the needs of people with disabilities in revamping its programs to focus on inequality, the Ford Foundation pledge Monday to undertake a top-to-bottom review of its policies and practices on the issue.
The self-examination will include a close look at Ford’s hiring practices, leadership, grant-making priorities, and the physical accessibility of its New York headquarters.
The foundation does not plan to start a new program on disabilities, wrote Darren Walker, president of the foundation, in a letter released today. Rather, Ford will attempt to include a discussion of disabilities across its work.
Mr. Walker said that in the 18 months the foundation spent overhauling its programs to focus on inequality, Ford “did not meaningfully consider people with disabilities.”
“It is clear to me now that this was a manifestation of the very inequality we were seeking to dismantle, and I am deeply embarrassed by it,” he wrote.
Urging Action
The move comes amid stepped-up efforts by other grant makers to address the needs of people with disabilities.
The Jewish Funders Network and the Genesis Prize Foundation today announced a $1 million “Breaking Barriers” fund to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of Jewish life. Billionaire Russian investor and philanthropist Roman Abramovich provided the funding for the matching-grant program.
Meanwhile, the Ruderman Family Foundation is trying to light a fire under other donors to act on the issue. President Jay Ruderman recently sent a letter to 433 grant makers reminding them that people with disabilities — about 20 percent of the global population — are disproportionately poor and unemployed.
“I urge you to directly and deliberately include people with disabilities in your excellent work,” he wrote.
The Ruderman fund plans to direct about 95 percent of its $10 million grant budget to disability issues this year.
Ruderman has worked with the Jewish Funders Network in recent years to gather together grant makers interested in disability issues. The group has participated in two conferences on the topic, held several webinars, and visited grantee sites such as summer camps.
Efforts Lacking
Despite such efforts, Ruderman and others say there are still far too few grant makers focused on the needs of people with disabilities.
According to figures compiled by the Foundation Center, about 750 foundations made disability-related grants totaling $1.5 billion in 2013. Foundations spent about $1.6 billion to benefit the environment and protect animals that year and $2 billion to support the arts and cultural programs.
Donn Weinberg, president of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, said many grant makers hold a “cartoon picture of the disabled” that views them as unfit for the workplace or traditional classrooms. His foundation has stopped supporting group homes and “sheltered workshop” jobs that segregate people with disabilities from other residents and employees.
The Weinberg Foundation made a total of $23.4 million in grants related to disabilities in its three most recent fiscal years and is probably the largest source of funding on the issue, according to several experts in the field.
Mr. Ruderman agrees with Mr. Weinberg’s criticism of how foundations view people with disabilities. “Historically, disability has been seen as an issue of charity, that these are poor, unfortunate individuals,” he said. “Disability rights are civil rights.”
Ripple Effect
In his letter, Mr. Walker took himself, the Ford Foundation, and all of philanthropy to task for “narrow-mindedness,” bias, and ignorance.
He also acknowledged that Ford doesn’t have anyone with a visible disability on its leadership team, a situation that isn’t unusual. According to a 2015 survey of 830 grant makers conducted by the Council of Foundations, 6 percent of employed someone with a disability. Eleven of those, or just over 1 percent, employed more than one person with a disability.
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of RespectAbility, a disability-rights advocacy group, said she hoped for a ripple effect from Ford’s announcement. “It is tremendous for Darren Walker to stand up and say Ford is going to do the right thing,” she said. “This sends a message to Rockefeller, to Pew, to Carnegie, to Kresge, and the Annie E. Casey [foundations] that other people should ask these hard questions themselves.”
At an annual meeting of foundation leaders in April sponsored by the Council on Foundations, Ms. Laszlo Mizrahi peppered a Ford official with questions about why the grant maker’s new strategy on inequality seemed to leave disability out of the mix. “There was a disconnect there that said to me that well-intentioned people hadn’t asked all the questions they could ask,” she said.
Over the next several months, Ms. Laszlo Mizrahi and other experts on disabilities met with Ford leaders to discuss how the foundation could change. In his letter, Mr. Walker said Ford will address its hiring practices, but he did not specify how. He also wrote that the foundation would soon ask vendors and grantees to disclose their commitments to people with disabilities.
Ms. Laszlo Mizrahi, who earlier this year called Mr. Walker a “hypocrite” in an email she wrote to him to push for the foundation to do more on disability issues, called his statement “step one.” She’s looking for Ford to demonstrate follow-through by further pressing its contractors and grantees — a process that won’t happen overnight.
“I don’t think inclusion is like an on-off switch,” she said. “It’s more like a dimmer switch.”
