Diversability Leadership Collective

**ENCORE: This podcast was recorded May 17, 2022 **

Marie Dagenais-Lewis, the Operations Manager at Diversability,  discusses the Diversability Leadership Collective and its community that fosters meaningful connections and offers resources & opportunities to help accelerate disability leadership and influence.

*Resources*

Diversability Leadership Collective: https://diversability.mn.co/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Diversability
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diversability
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Diversability
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diversability/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHR3MGpjxxorkLvIiIK-eXA
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@diversability


Nucleus Research: https://nucleusresearch.com/research/single/the-internet-is-unavailable/
The Purple Pound: https://wearepurple.org.uk/the-purple-pound-infographic/#:~:text=The%20Purple%20Pound%20refers%20to,the%20members%20has%20a%20disability.

Transcript

- This is Katrin with Disability Rights New York. I'm your host for the podcast today and I'm a white woman with brown, curly hair. I have a white shirt on today and a necklace with a blue stone. Welcome to our podcast, Empire State of Rights: Closed Captioned. We are here to bring you information on the most relevant topics regarding disability rights and advocacy. Today we welcome Marie Dagenais-Lewis, the Operations Manager at Diversability. She's here to discuss the Diversability Leadership Collective and it's community that fosters meaningful connections and offers resources and opportunities to help accelerate disability, leadership, and influence. Marie, thank you so much for joining us today.

- Of course, thank you for having me.

- And Marie, before we get started and start to talk about Diversability, let's talk a little bit about you. Tell us about yourself and how you got started.

- Yeah, so I am, for accessibility reasons, I'm a pale-skin woman with long, dark hair, wearing glasses, sitting in the corner of a white room, wearing a black shirt that says "F*** Stairs" by Crip Riot. They're another disabled-owned business as well. And yeah, I was born disabled with a rare disability and it took me a long time to acknowledge I was disabled. For a while, I've kind of lived the double life where I hid my disability and I tried to be as able-bodied as possible. And prior to my work at Diversability, I was actually a broadcast television director where I directed thousands of shows until I was a victim of disability discrimination and I lost my career to ableism. And so it was like, I was really devastated because that's what really forced me to fully accept my disabled identity and understand that I didn't deserve to go through what I went through. And I was looking for a place really where disability belonged and I felt like I could pridefully be myself because I wasn't pridefully myself really, but I wanted to be. And that's when I found the Diversability community on Facebook, which was like, it was a breath of fresh air to me coming from a hostile environment where I had to hide the fact I was disabled and I had to constantly explain my disability to being part of a community where disability was an asset and a celebrated asset. It's like through the Facebook community, I found the confidence to really make my own career as a disabled freelancer that focused on my disabled experience as an asset. It led to me becoming an art activist and like being able to make art for disability rights, but also a community organizer, and then I eventually became a member of the Diversability team itself, which I'm very honored to be able to help other disabled creators find the confidence to make a career off of their disabled experience as well.

- Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I think the journey from one career to another in and of itself is always very interesting, but taking it from the perspective of your personal journey is really exceptional. So thank you for sharing that with us. And so let's start to talk about Diversability. You found it on Facebook. So let's talk about how it started, what its mission is and with it, having it start on social media, let's talk about how it's grown along with social media, and maybe a little bit about how that may have influenced or helped with visibility.

- Oh, the origin story of Diversability is something that it's really empowering to me. Tiffany Yu, who is the founder of Diversability. She created it first as a student club in Georgetown. And at first of course, back in 2009, when she created it, disability pride wasn't really a thing. People really-- they didn't really believe in it as much, but she received a small grant from Georgetown to create Diversability. And that led to over 10 years of work that now employees over 10 disabled employees, we have close to 5,000 community members, over 6,000 followers. We have hundreds of events that we've held and originally Tiffany had it as in person events and so it, I believe it was in New York where they would just hold panels of disabled speakers, really elevating the disabled voice. And now with the evolution of, I guess the virtual world, we are holding Diversability unplugged events every month where we have a panel of, I believe it's like at least four disabled speakers. Sometimes we have more, but mostly four disabled speakers of various topics of where we are just basking in the glory of disabled excellence and really highlighting everything that someone disabled is capable of doing because really we're always undermined, but Diversability has the mission of elevating disability pride through community and through visibility and through democratizing disabled voices, because not only is Diversability disabled-owned, but it's also minority-owned and woman-owned. Tiffany is an Asian American and so it's like one of our-- like we pride ourselves in making sure that we make sure that there are seats at the table for people who have never been invited to the table before.

- And if I could interrupt for one second. So I think it's-- so in talking about the origin story, and you're right, it is exceptional. And so we talk about community and the in-person events and now how, you know, with the advent of zoom, do you think that, of course COVID-19 played a part in that, or were you already doing virtual unplugged events prior to that? Myself and some other people at DRNY have attended some of these events and they're really fascinating, in that they're the collective of people who are talking and talking about information that maybe some people, who maybe have not been part of the community have never heard before. So what are your thoughts on that? As far as community goes and how we think about small businesses in general and how they grow, were you doing online events before this or did you go along with the explosion of Zoom as it became a necessary part of life?

- Yeah, I joined the team in 2021, so I wasn't part of the pre-COVID Diversability, but we had a virtual community on Facebook prior to COVID, but really once COVID hit that's when we were forced, I believe, to adapt with everything and create that virtual space because I'm pretty sure most of our events were the in-person networking events and the speaking engagement. So really we were like everyone else who had to find a new way, and to me personally, it's a better way. It's more inclusive of people who couldn't travel, who can't be around people for whatever reason, the closed captioning, the ASL services, there's multiple factors that it makes it like the new normal, a better normal. Just because it's more adaptive and accessible to people who might not feel comfortable going an in person event, even if COVID never was a thing.

- Agree. It's a platform that has had to take into account closed captioning, and being able to integrate sign language and even other language interpretation all simultaneously. So, you know, part of that is that the technology has existed, right? It has been there all along and now it's, you know, it's an end user norm, which is so interesting to think of every person that is using some type of online platform and how accessible it is. Certainly there's still work to be done in that area, but you're right, being able to have people also from different countries, from all over this country, being able to join and share their experiences has changed the way community is formed. So I think that is-- that's something that may have happened regardless, as you said. So let's talk about the Leadership Collective. You and I have spoken before, and I think we could probably talk all day about the things that your group is doing, but the Diversability Leadership Collective is just awesome in what it's doing. Talk to us about that and the purpose of it, and what is it providing to the community specifically?

- Yeah, the Diversability Leadership Collective is the first of its kind, incubator type space for disabled excellence. And so it's a member's only community that fosters meaningful connections with the intention of accelerating disabled excellence, whether that's through press opportunities, through getting speaking opportunities, through master classes, through networking engagements within the community, through paid job volunteer opportunities. It's like is a curated space to really grow your thought leadership, your disabled advocacy resume. The opportunities in the Diversability Leadership Collective is something that I take a lot of pride in honestly, because Tiffany did the numbers a couple weeks ago, and just in our time we created in August of 2021, that's when we launched the DLC, we have been able to get our members over $23,000 worth of paid opportunities. And it's like in a world that really devalues disabled experience, it's like not only does it devalue it, but a lot of patient expertise, we're just expected to give it away, just to volunteer our time, just to write articles for the sake of a byline. And it's like to be able to ensure that our community, they're not, they don't have to give away their expertise if they want to actually get paid for it, they can actually get paid for it and seeing it work, it's something I can't even tell you, like knowing that we are helping people make a career when the world told them it wasn't possible before.

- That really is so cool. And, and as you said, we're talking about subject matter experts. This is their area of expertise within this-- within the leadership collective and any other subject matter expert is, that's part of their resume. That's what they're getting paid for. That's what they're being recruited for. And they're being compensated based on their, whether it's their amount of time in a field and in this case, it's lifetime more than likely. So, and that's a really, a really great point to make. We talk about incubators and small business incubators and how the idea is to grow. Is there mentorship as part of this leadership group and how does that work? Are you pairing people or is it a little more spontaneous than that?

- It's like a peer support community that really, I feel like so many of us, we mentor each other just in our networking and in our community spaces, we hold biweekly mixers to where we and peer support led by community members as well, to where we are able to not only like, throw ideas off of each other, but really get that validation that we can't find other places. It's one thing having, you know, people tell you you're doing good, or you should do this or life's gonna get better. But it's another thing, having people who live through similar experiences and can be like, "I really, I really understand what you're going through, "And I'm here to help you with whatever you need." like to see the collaboration that is in the community, like people asking for resume help, you'll see another person jump in and be like, "Well, I can do this for you." People asking for advice, for legal advice, "Well, I could connect you to this person." It's like to have that peer support community that actually helps people grow because they know what it's like to be judged and to be invalidated, to be minimized. I feel like as just my time in the Diversability Leadership Collective, I've grown so much as a mentor and as someone who's a mentee, because like we're all learning from each other and just gaining so much from having its space where we feel comfortable enough to share vulnerable experiences. Because it's like, some of the stuff that's shared is vulnerability like none other, and that's where the truest strength can really come from is having that safe place to where you can take back your power from the things that you felt minimized from.

- Absolutely and that's the true sense of community, right? I mean, especially when it's genuine where this isn't something that was learned through any other platform. It's something that's learned experience because it's lived experience. And being able to share that, I can imagine is invaluable. And so let's talk a little bit about some of the issues that you may have heard and that members are voicing and have been voicing since the collective started like employment opportunities. And you've talked a little bit about ableism and talk about disability and ableism and how that affects not only the members of the collective, but of the disability community. And we can talk about what other areas, employers and recruiters really need to start doing a little more work on because certainly there's a lot of work to still be done.

- Oh yeah. It's like people don't understand that just because the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, is in existence, that doesn't mean disability discrimination is not happening in the workplace. It happens so often. And oftentimes we don't even realize it's happening to us. I know personally for myself, it took me over two years to realize I was in a hostile work environment because the ableist society trained us to think that it's our fault when we're sick. Oh, our body's failing us and we can't keep up with the workload that was expected of us prior, well, it's our fault. And really is it that we can't keep up with it or are we not doing it quick enough? Because when I look back, I kept up with everything. I just did it in a different way, that was not what my bosses wanted at the time. And it's like, disability discrimination is so much more than we even really realize. And that's something that a lot of us in the DLC, like we've talked about experiencing, because it's like the denial of accommodations, the invalidation of your diagnosis. It's like, at least I know I didn't understand this at the time when I was experiencing disability discrimination, but HR actually has no right to tell me how my disability should be treated. But I got like, I was fired because I didn't treat my disability in the way HR thought I should be treated. And it's like, we don't realize that we have these rights that are protected by the ADA, but we also have so many rights that aren't protected by the ADA. It's like we have a constitutional inequality that really impacts everything because some states don't even have to really abide by the ADA because of the challenge that happened in the 2000s where the Supreme Court ruled that because the constitution doesn't directly state accommodating, some states don't actually have to abide by some of those rules. Historical locations, they don't have to abide by the ADA. The ADA doesn't even go far enough. It doesn't even require automatic doors. I wasn't able to get in my old building. My husband had to wheel me to the door, had to open it for me and then I'd get in trouble every time he would wheel me to my desk, because he wasn't allowed back there, even though it was inaccessible and I couldn't get back there without him. It's like, I'm only one person and I have so much lived experience with it. In the community, there are so many people, so many stories of, I think of one person in particular, they have a disability that impacts their speech and it hurts my heart often to hear how society treats them because they don't speak the way society thinks they should speak and they have master's degrees. They are intelligent, but because they don't speak a certain way, they're not even given a chance oftentimes. And it's like so many chronic illness, people with chronic illness in the workplace, they're often invalidated because they need to rest more or their disability isn't visible. And it's like employers, if they could learn and not just employers, because also as employees, if we can also learn about our rights, like if we can be more educated in the rights that we have and the rights that we still need to get, it's like maybe, maybe you would get better. I don't know if it would get better, honestly, because some people don't have to really abide by those rules, but yeah, there's education about disability discrimination and the rights that we have is essential for an inclusive workplace and an inclusive environment in general.

- Agreed and I've brought up COVID already during our conversation, but when the pandemic put the country into shutdown because certainly we're still experiencing COVID-19 and we will be for a long time, there was an immediate ability to work from home. There is an immediate accommodation for not just the country, but for the globe, the whole world. We had to see how can we function in this way? And so some of the information that had in the past been acceptable as not allowing for people to work from home as an accommodation has now really been debunked in a global way. And that's not just saying global as an adjective, it's in a literal way. So let's talk about how really the shutdown highlighted how flexible employers really can be, and even with the limitations that you discussed with the ADA, that those limitations should not be there. We've seen it work, right? Talk a little bit about your experience with that, and the way that the collective has looked at that.

- Oh yeah, it's really frustrating because the COVID pandemic really highlights the fact that accessibility has always been within reach, but the ableist society has chosen to keep it inaccessible for a multitude of reasons. They try to claim it helps the bottom line, but let's be real, disability inclusion and accommodation actually increases your profits. There have been multiple studies done that show the benefits of disability inclusion in the workplace, and none of them show a decrease in profit. Actually most recently, I can recall off the top of my head, a study done by Nucleus Research on digital accessibility companies lose $6.9 billion annually if their website is inaccessible to their accessible competitors. And that's just one statistic. The Purple Pound has done a multitude of research as well that I can't do that conversion right now, but it's a great study if anyone wants to look into it, The Purple Pound, disability inclusion is very profitable, but they'll say it's not because the ablest society gets their control by being inaccessible. But really it's like in-- especially in the Diversability Leadership Collective, we are always talking about how remote work is viable work, and not only is it viable work, it makes work so much more accessible. I find myself extremely fortunate to work for Diversability because coming from a hostile work environment, I now work in a place that's fully remote. that not only is it remote, it's disabled-owned and operated and everyone on the team has a disability, and so it's like, there's an understanding of time. And you know, like the spoon theory of like the energy and everything, it's something like I've never experienced before, and Diversability is proof that this type of workplace works. Tiffany has been able to hire 10 people. That's amazing. And not only that, the community that we have, we've been able to connect our members with opportunities that helps build their brand, their resume. We've gotten one person a scholarship for like, I believe it was $12,000. Another person had a couple thousand dollars speaking engagement. It's like it can be done, but the ableist society has always chosen to keep accommodations inaccessible. They'll act as if accommodations are special treatment and it's like, there's nothing special about a medical necessity. It's a medical necessity and accommodation. And I'm like, the silver lining to me of the pandemic is the push for more access in multitudes of spaces because we have the digital space with Zoom. We have the workspace with remote work. It's like that's the silver lining to me is I really hope that we don't go backwards. Like my brother, he was working remote for the entire COVID pandemic because he works IT. And now they're forcing him to come back into the workspace for one day a week and it's like, he can do his job outside of the workspace. Why are we going back? We don't have to go back because it was the old normal, we can make this better. And that's the vibe in the community is just advocating that remote work is an essential part of a diverse, inclusive workspace. We can't tout ourselves as being diverse and inclusive if we're not actually actively making sure we have remote work and other workplace accessibility accommodations in place.

- Agreed, and that is just such a wonderful way to put it that if you're not including remote work as part of your inclusion plan for your company, then you're really not all the way there. And you've talked about Tiffany, you've talked about some of the grants that you've been able to get, and these are huge successes. Are there any other success stories that you want to highlight, whether it's businesses or people who have participated as part of the collective and what other opportunities are being offered, just to get a little insight into what you're doing?

- Yeah, so there was a few members that, I mean, I could definitely give shout outs to. Nico Meyering, he's been there from the very beginning and he actually has created a scholarship called the Fraser Fund in honor of one of his old mentors who has sadly passed away. He has provided a monthly scholarship to pay for a month's membership for someone in the community. And so every month we have our community member, Nico Meyering, providing a membership for another advocate to really jumpstart their career. And I think that's really a beautiful thing because all it takes is that one person believing in you and it's like that all it really takes is that one thing. It's like within a month's membership, you have access to all of the master classes that we've ever had, so you can start learning about social media advocacy, selling yourself, but there's been mindfulness courses. There's been a whole wealth of knowledge that you can have access to. You have access to two community mixers, you have access to a peer support group, one fireside chat and one digital, I mean, Diversability Unplugged, and so it's like within that one month, you really get so much community. And another person I really love to shout out is Nicole Luongo. I loved seeing her in the community. She actually joined the community through the Fraser Fund. She was a recipient of Nico Meyering, and ever since she stayed in the community, she's been at every event. I'm so proud of her because she's starting her own podcast now, and she has been teaching herself how to edit and really like seeing her find the confidence to try to do something on her own, where she was a podcast host before, so it's not like she hasn't done a podcast. She was an amazing podcast host. And so to see her really be like, "I can do this on my own, I don't need anyone else to edit it for me." And to like have the support to take those steps, that's been such an amazing process and I'm really proud of her. And the opportunities and the DLC, we have members host their first events. We've had a member, Jay Travettie, he hosted a mixer for the first time with us, and now he's been on several podcasts. We've had people featured in publications like "Her Campus," "Thrive Global," just there's so many success stories. I can go on and on really with everything. And what's really great about the community is if someone wanted to try it, they can get their first week free. And also we have sliding scale membership to make it a little bit more financially accessible as well. So if someone couldn't afford the full price, they can apply for a slide scale membership and we can get them in.

- That's great. I was just gonna ask you about how someone can become a member. So it is a paid membership. And is there an application process? Is there a review process? Talk to us a little bit about what that looks like for someone who is interested in applying, and how they really get to be a part of this.

- Yeah, so you can head to https://diversability.mn.co, that's D-I-V-E-R-S-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y.mn.co. And that's where you can find the DLC that's right there. You can find sign-up information. You can sign-up through that page. You can apply for your sliding scale membership through that page. Like you find where to do that. If you're not applying for a sliding scale membership, you just join right away, and if you apply for sliding scale membership, you fill out that application and we review and then we get you in.

- That's awesome. And so I know you have so many events coming up and before we sign off, I would love to hear about the ones that are coming up soon, and of course, I want to also invite you to come back so we can hear more about what you're doing, because like I said, I think we could probably talk all day. And so I know you have a couple that are coming up relatively soon. So let's talk about those and talk about how people can participate in them.

- In June, we're gonna be highlighting Black Musician Month, and so I'm really excited about our Unplugged. We're doing a collaboration with Ramped for that. July is Power and Pride celebration so I'm really excited. I'm organizing nine collaborative conversations in our Diversability Clubhouse, and so anyone can join the conversation with that. All they need is Clubhouse and that we have so much more coming up at the end of the year, too. We have adaptive sports. We're going to be talking about disability employment, going to be talking about Web3. There's so much coming up and it's just awesome too, because we can continue the conversations in our communities. So we have our Diversability Leadership Collective, and we also have our free Facebook community as well. It's not as curated as the DLC, but it's still a good way to dip your toes into the community, if disability pride or disability advocacy is something that you want to be a part of.

- I can't wait to check out all these links and all of the information. And we will certainly list all of these links in the description of the podcast, so everyone who's in our audience can find out more information about them. Marie, thank you so much for your time today. It is always great talking to you and I cannot wait to speak to you again.

- Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure.

- [Narrator] Empire State of Rights: Closed Captioned has been brought to you by Disability Rights New York, your source for disability rights and advocacy. If you enjoyed our program, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this post. If there is a subject you would like us to discuss, please email podcast@drny.org or comment below. Tune in next Wednesday, where we'll bring you more information on disability rights in the state of New York. The closed captioned and ASL version of this podcast is available on our YouTube channel. To listen to more Empire State of Rights: Closed Captioned, follow us on Apple podcasts and Spotify.