Opening the Door to More

Charities are tapping the talents of disabled helpers to diversify the face of their volunteer work force

When Nancie Ozimkowski was attending a conference on disability issues in Hawaii back in March, she was

invited to join some Habitat for Humanity volunteers to build a house in Honolulu. Although she had no experience in construction, Ms. Ozimkowski was game, and soon she was climbing the scaffolding and hammering nails.

The fact that she is blind didn’t stop her — and she was not the only volunteer working on the house who had a disability. A man born with no arms used his feet to hammer, shovel, and apply spackling, says Susan Desmond, volunteer and community-services manager at Ability Awareness, in Costa Mesa, Calif., which recruited the disabled volunteers.

Another man, who had lost his leg in an accident, dug trenches, did heavy lifting, and worked on the roof, says Ms. Desmond. “He uses a really impressive prosthetic that he can tap and it goes from a running leg to a walking leg to a climbing leg,” she says.

Other volunteers had narcolepsy, Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism), and quadriplegia.

Ability Awareness, whose mission is to assure full access to education, telecommunications, transportation, and housing for people with disabilities, started working in 1999 with Habitat for Humanity on the Ability House project, which uses volunteers with disabilities to help build low-cost houses for families who have at least one member with a disability. About half of the workers on Ability Houses are disabled.

Federally sponsored organizations such as AmeriCorps, Vista, and Senior Corps have been promoting the recruitment of volunteers with disabilities for years, and the Points of Light Foundation and other grant makers have supported that mission as well. In addition, some activists who are disabled have spoken at volunteerism conferences to make nonprofit managers aware of what disabled volunteers have to offer charities.

“People want to be inclusive,” says Gillian Friedman, executive director of Ability Awareness, but they are often afraid of saying the wrong thing, or they are afraid that the disabled volunteer will be injured on the job.

Before beginning to recruit people with disabilities, says Dr. Friedman, it’s important to prepare carefully — to make sure that the organization, staff members, and other volunteers are ready, and that the site is accessible.

Engaging such volunteers in the work of nonprofit groups is part of an emerging trend to make the volunteer work force more representative of the general population, says Ms. Desmond.

Recruiting volunteers who have disabilities can enrich volunteers and nonprofit groups alike, she notes. For volunteers, it can foster social connections, give them a chance to try new things, and instill a sense of pride. For nonprofit groups, it can fill volunteer slots with well-qualified candidates who sometimes go on to become valued staff members.

Even the most ambitious disabled volunteers readily admit they have their limitations, but nonprofit leaders who have worked with them for years say they have never failed to find useful projects for those willing to help. And with a little creative thinking, they have managed to make the work accessible at little or no cost.

Careful Planning

Opening doors to this morediverse group of workers does require planning and extra effort to avoid mishaps, says Ms. Desmond. During the first three days of work on a house, the Ability Awareness staff works intensively with volunteers to make sure they are doing jobs suitable to their abilities and that they are working with other volunteers who can help them, if necessary.

Pam Zeutenhorst, manager of volunteer services at the Volunteer Center of the Redwoods, a clearinghouse in Eureka, Calif., says that the extra effort can change perceptions: “It can foster the image of people with disabilities as providing services and not just as service recipients.”

Mark Carnes has volunteered for several American Red Cross chapters for 40 years, starting long before he began using a wheelchair after an automobile accident a few years ago. In his latest volunteer post, he helps find resources for victims of home fires, hurricanes, and other emergencies.

“Our organization needs to look like what we look like as a nation,” says Mr. Carnes, who lives in Loveland, Colo. “If we were to restrict our staffing, whether it be volunteer or paid, to people who do not have disabilities, we’d be eliminating a huge cadre of volunteers and staff who have a lot to offer. It would be senseless.”

Mr. Carnes, whose disability ended his career as a product manager at IBM, says his volunteer work fills a void.

“After my accident, the thing that I really missed about corporate America were the relationships and the ability to work with others on a daily basis,” he says. Volunteering, he says, gives him a chance to be part of something he knows is important.

False Perceptions

Nonprofit leaders sometimes balk at the notion of inviting people who are disabled to help out, thinking the expense would be too high and the limitations too great. But those concerns are overblown, says Dr. Friedman, of Ability Awareness.

When staff members of Ability Awareness work with a Habitat chapter for the first time, part of their job is shaping perceptions and making people aware of their inaccurate assumptions.

“Every volunteer organization has someone with a disability,” says Dr. Friedman. “Most disabilities are hidden, but when you see people with identifiable disabilities, there’s a different mind-set. When you see someone with arthritis, you don’t see that as a disability, but if that person is blind, people don’t have the same thinking. This is a process of just rethinking the way things have to be done for people to participate.”

Although disabled volunteers may require some practical accommodations, they do not present a greater liability risk than would any other volunteer, say nonprofit managers who have worked with them.

Eve Hill, executive director of the Disability Rights Legal Center, in Los Angeles, says that fears of increased liability risk are unfounded: “We have many volunteers with disabilities, and it has never been difficult to accommodate them and has never caused any liability or any insurance problems,” she says in an e-mail message to The Chronicle. “Plus, many of our volunteers bring fresh perspective to the work and really get a lot out of working here.”

It isn’t just charity leaders who need to be convinced that people with disabilities can contribute to nonprofit organizations. It’s also sometimes a struggle to get the prospective volunteers to believe in their potential, says Ms. Desmond.

The most difficult part of her job, she says, is wooing workers for a task that seems daunting for those with no experience in construction. “These are people who have never typically been asked to volunteer before, and I’m asking them to go out to build a house,” she says. “That’s a really large leap. I spend a lot of time talking about the program and doing a lot of convincing. I spend weeks and weeks, calling, talking, sending them information, and asking them to participate.”

But once they donate their time, many, like Ms. Ozimkowski, are delighted to be helping out and eager to do it again.

Essential Tasks

A host of potential pitfalls can be headed off from the start by writing appropriate project descriptions and asking the right questions when interviewing candidates for volunteer jobs, says Karen Leventhal, director of the Alliance for Inclusion Advancement at the Tarjan Center at the University of California at Los Angeles, which works to open up opportunities in the arts for people with disabilities.

In the job description, she suggests, be sure to list only essential tasks — what needs to be done, not how it should be done.

For example, she says, “some job descriptions ask for someone with a driver’s license, when they’re not really looking for that. They’re looking for someone who can get from point A to point B at a certain time of day. So it gives people a wider range.”

Sarah Adams, director of agency and volunteer services at Volunteer San Diego, which recruits volunteers to help local charities, encourages volunteers to open up about what they require to do a job.

“In our projects’ descriptions, we explain the tasks involved and say that if anyone feels like they need accommodations to complete those tasks, let us know and we will be glad to provide them if we can,” she says. “That helps break down some barriers.”

That’s also a way to get some useful information about a potential volunteer without asking if that person is disabled — a breach of etiquette as well as a possible legal problem, says Ms. Leventhal.

Usually charities that receive money from state and federal agencies have restrictions against such questions, she notes.

“In general you don’t want to ask if someone has a disability, especially in an employment situation,” she notes. “It is up to each individual whether to disclose a disability. But you can get at it by being very clear about what the tasks are and asking if they can do them with or without reasonable accommodations.”

A good place to look for volunteers with disabilities is one of the independent-living centers that are scattered around the country, says Hope McMath, director of education at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, in Jacksonville, Fla. She uses volunteers with disabilities to fill a variety of roles, such as researching, writing about works of art in the collection, teaching, working with students from local schools, and preparing supplies for art classes.

Several years ago, Ms. McMath tried to fill four six-month internships through an independent-living center and got 24 qualified applicants.

“Sometimes even in the general population — even for a paid job — we have trouble getting half a dozen quality candidates,” says Ms. McMath.

Among the new interns were an art-history major who uses a wheelchair and a children’s author who is blind. Both of them were later hired for permanent jobs, and seven years later they are still on the staff.

Making Adjustments

Most accommodations for people with disabilities cost little or nothing, says Ms. Leventhal. Sometimes all that is required is some flexibility on the part of the organization.

Making a volunteer duty accessible may mean allowing someone to do an activity sitting instead of standing, she says. Or, she adds, “if it’s a person with diabetes, it might be taking 15 minutes every couple of hours to get something to eat or get a shot of insulin.”

The Americans With Disabilities Act sets standards to make public buildings accessible, says Ms. McMath, but those standards aren’t necessarily sufficient for all disabled people to navigate.

“Even if you’re ADA compliant, that doesn’t mean you’re doing as well as you can do,” she says. “ADA is the bare minimum.”

For example, one intern at the Cummer Museum was unable to use her desk, which was too low for her wheelchair to fit under. So the maintenance crew built four-inch supports to raise the desk. “It didn’t cost us any money, and not much time,” says Ms. McMath. “And we got a quality intern.”

The former intern, who is now a staff member, teaches classes in art studios and needs to reach for art supplies.

“So we moved the materials down low enough so she could get to them,” says Ms. McMath. “It’s about her being able to work as independently as possible. Just because you take on someone with a disability doesn’t mean everybody else’s lives have to change.”

When special equipment is required for a volunteer to do the work, it is often possible to get it free or at low cost from a local government agency or other group.

The Volunteer Center of Maricopa County, in Phoenix, which matches volunteers with local charities, got a magnifier and a large-screen computer for a volunteer with low vision through the state Division of Employment and Rehabilitation Services, which is part of the Department of Economic Security, says Margie Coggins, director of partner and volunteer services.

Accessibility may also mean training staff members to be sensitive to the needs of volunteers with disabilities, says Ms. McMath. In the past, she has organized awareness training so staff members would know how to work with volunteers who have disabilities — and how to accommodate companion animals, such as guide dogs for the blind.

Healthy Competition

Bridget Houlihan, who works as a communications specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, has volunteered for years despite having cerebral palsy, which limits her motor skills.

She has helped sort food at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and served as a camp counselor, helping disabled campers with swimming, horseback riding, and other activities.

The camp experience was more intense than most, she says.

“It took a little more effort to volunteer in the camp situation,” she says. “I’d get up earlier to get myself ready before I got other people ready. It would take extra time, so I had to factor that in — lack of sleep, things like that — but that’s just the camp experience.

“One of the challenges was realizing my own personal limitations,” she adds. “I couldn’t push someone up a hill in a wheelchair, but that made me work harder to do things I could do — feeding, planning activities, making people feel included. Those were things I was really good at.”

She aided the disabled campers not only by assisting them with activities, but also by inspiring a healthy competition.

“Depending on the disability, depending on the situation, there can be a lot of discouragement,” she says. “People can feel fed up by their situation and feel like they can’t do anything. When I show them what I’m able to do, it proves a point without really having to say anything.”

“They would complain that they couldn’t push themselves up a hill, then they would see me do it, and the next day they’d be pushing themselves up a hill,” she says.

If she couldn’t physically push the campers’ chairs, she realized that she could serve as unique inspiration, prodding them to help themselves via her example.

“The other counselors,” she notes, “couldn’t do that.”