Written by YNPN Greater Bflo
YNPN Greater Bflo’s mission is to strengthen the nonprofit community by serving as an inclusive and innovative resource for networking and growth to empower young professionals.
To help guide our efforts to fulfill this mission, we recently defined our Strategy for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, which you can read here.
This year, we will be focusing on increasing access through intentional inclusion in the following ways:
-Removing financial barriers. In order to reflect the needs of our community, we lowered the price of our year-long membership fee from $25 to just $10. We understand that those who may need our training, professional development, and events the most may be the ones who can’t afford it.
-Provide recordings with closed-captioning so that people can take advantage of our event even if they’re unable to make it because of last-minute disruptions.
-Providing ASL Interpreters and closed-captioning for live events as well as recordings, for those who are Deaf or hard of hearing.
-In presentations, we will ask our speakers to use high-color contrasts for our color-blind peers, as well as alt-text/image descriptions for those with visual impairments. We will also ask them to use less text for those who may have ADHD or other issues focusing.
-Breakout rooms will be built for groups of three or more to reduce microaggressions that can occur.
-And always, ask – in registrations forms, we will detail what accessibility tools are available, and ask individuals to let us know if they need anything else. We appreciate any and all feedback from our network regarding areas to grow as an inclusive organization.
This list was adapted from a recent YNPN National presentation given by Alley Jensen, Co-Director of Programming & Special Events for YNPN Greater Bflo and Luigi Fu of YNPN San Francisco Bay Area.
In their presentation entitled “Strategies for Embracing Technology and Making it Accessible,” Alley and Luigi recognized that there was a need to address the common challenges we are facing as a result of our worlds drastically changing since the beginning of the year — dealing with the dual pandemic of COVID and systematic racism.
They realized that as a result of this, our collective way of being with each other has shifted — from how we interact with our colleagues to how we engage our donors and volunteers. It has pushed us to adopt virtual solutions to continue our work. For some, that change has been tougher than others, through no fault of their own.
Throughout the presentation, they covered skills to embrace technology as a lever for good, instead of resisting it; how to make the most of virtual events and meetings; being intentional in building an inclusive and accessible virtual environment; and more.
Readings:
Designing Inclusive Spaces – Sana Rahim
Enabling ASL Interpretation in Zoom
Language interpretation in meetings and webinars
How to write an image description
Introduction to Web Accessibility
Creating Accessible PowerPoint Presentations
Making Your Content Accessible – Alt Tags, Captions, and Transcripts
How to Use & Promote Inclusive Language at Your Organization
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