Strengthening Event Accessibility: Wallace Foundation
Project at a Glance
The Wallace Foundation partnered with LaVant to evaluate and strengthen accessibility at one of the Foundation’s Professional Learning Community (PLC) convenings for a cohort of grantees and leaders committed to advancing equity in the arts. The LaVant team assessed accessibility practices across the entire event lifecycle, from registration to post-event reflection. The team documented virtual and on-site observations, conducted multiple in-depth grantee interviews, and reviewed pre-event and digital materials. LaVant compiled their findings into a 19 page comprehensive report with opportunities for improvement and suggested next steps for the Foundation.
A Team Dedicated to Advancing Equity in the Arts
The Wallace Foundation is a philanthropic grantmaking organization with a mission to help all communities build a more vibrant and just future. The Foundation realizes this mission by fostering advances in the arts, education leadership, and youth development. The Foundation hosted a three day convening of a Professional Learning Community (PLC) that brought together more than 150 participants and grantees from arts, education, and social justice organizations in Brooklyn, NY.
The challenge
Leveling Up a Commitment to Equity With Accessibility
Often, accessibility gets sidelined in equity work because it is mistakenly seen as irrelevant and tedious. Rather than fall into this trap, the Wallace Foundation recognized that accessibility is a key feature of equity and took steps to ensure that access would be built into their convenings. By partnering with LaVant to assess their Brooklyn PLC event, the Foundation demonstrated an openness to learning that positioned themselves as a model for how philanthropy can embed disability leadership into its operational culture.
LaVant’s Approach
LaVant leveraged its 5 Pillars of Access to guide its assessment of the convening’s accessibility and create recommendations for the Foundation team to grow its access in future convenings. LaVant used their expert knowledge to assess the following areas of the event:
- Event Registration Forms
- Pre-Event Meetings
- Emails Coordinating Accommodations
- Attendee Materials and Handouts, Digital and Physical
- Registration Desks
- In-Person Paths of Travel
- Seating Options
- Installations
- Programming Content
- Facilitation Techniques
- Catering
- Emergency Preparedness
- Transportation Logistics
- Scheduling Itineraries
- Wayfinding and Signage
LaVant also ensured they listened closely to feedback from participants with disabilities. Over the course of the event, LaVant conducted informal and formal interviews with seven attendees, including first-time and returning grantees, disabled leaders, and representatives of different organizations and movements. This information was invaluable when creating LaVant’s event report and its recommendations for the Foundation.
The Impact
In response to LaVant’s findings and recommendations, the Foundation’s leadership began integrating access into its internal event and convening plans. The Foundation piloted accessibility review guidelines for all future convenings and introduced a feedback loop for grantees to share ongoing access insights. Building on the success of the PLC audit, LaVant developed and delivered accessibility and hospitality training for Foundation staff. The customized training used real-case scenarios, data, and reflection curated from the Brooklyn convening to build staff and grantee confidence in accessible event design, vendor management, and communication access integration.
