The International Symbol of Access, the instantly recognizable symbol of a white figure seated in a wheelchair, was created in 1968, after a number of different access symbols had emerged throughout the world. In 2010, the artist Sara Hendren was struck by this image and how its depiction of a person with disability sits static in a wheelchair, suggesting they lacked agency. Inspired by street art movements, she partnered with the graffiti artist Brian Glenney to slap a new accessibility design sticker across signs throughout Boston. Her figure leans forward in a wheelchair, rather than sitting back, its arms raised in dynamic motion. Her icon has quickly shuttled its way throughout cities around the world, and even into the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, challenging society’s understanding of disability. 

This is the power of art—to redefine our view of the world—and artists with disabilities, and those who design with them, have played a unique role in critiquing and pushing past our society’s often limited expectations of what defines human potential.  

The precise proportion of disabled artists is difficult to know. An analysis of 2010 U.S. Census data found that artists with disabilities represented 6% of all working artists in America. A more recent survey of New York State’s artists suggested that number was over 10%.

Philanthropy has begun to recognize the central role that artists with disabilities play in our culture. Investments over the past decade—including the creation of the Disability & Philanthropy Forum in 2019 and the Disability Futures Fellowship by the Ford and Mellon Foundations one year later—have helped expand disability cultural leadership while encouraging philanthropic institutions to rethink their own practices.

Preliminary results from a recent survey conducted by the firm Social Insights Research, commissioned by Ford and the Doris Duke Foundation, suggest the world of philanthropy, despite being a critical source of support for many, has significant room for growth. 

Perhaps the biggest lesson articulated in the survey is that funders often support disabled artists without accounting for disability itself. Too often, grants are designed as though artists share the same access needs, financial realities, and timelines. Restricted, short-term funding may support a specific project while overlooking the resources that make artistic practice possible, from personal care and health care to adaptive technology, transportation, and flexible schedules. Likewise, lump-sum grants can force some artists into an impossible choice: accept a fellowship or risk losing essential disability benefits because of a temporary increase in income.

Several artists also cited application processes that were inaccessible. Online applications were incompatible with screen readers and dictation software. Heavy reliance on written narratives created barriers for artists with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Applicants had no option to connect with an actual human when they required assistance. Too few disabled people served on philanthropic staff or selection committees.  Some artists were even asked to provide “proof” of a non-apparent disability.

Some necessary changes are straightforward: Make application processes accessible and offer flexible, multi-year funding. The Borealis Philanthropy’s Disability Inclusion Fund (supported by the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy, which includes the Ford and MacArthur Foundations) does both, offering multi-year grants and multiple formats of accessible options. But more systemic challenges require systemic solutions and changes to the way philanthropy typically operates. For the sector, tools such as the Disability Inclusion Pledge provide foundations with benchmarks and guidance to support increased operational accessibility and inclusion; to date, over 100 philanthropies have signed onto this commitment. 

Prioritizing inclusive grantmaking will require philanthropies to ramp up investment, build and retain disability expertise, and include disabled artists in grantmaking design, decision-making, and evaluation. Philanthropies should also use the full set of philanthropic tools—not only grant dollars but also their convening power, communications platforms, institutional influence, and learning infrastructure—to deepen and advance disability cultural leadership. 

At its best, philanthropy can help disabled artists reshape cultural narratives. Disability art reimagines beauty, productivity, independence, and belonging through the lens of access, interdependence, and flourishing.

Disability justice recognizes that ableism is interconnected with racism, sexism, xenophobia, economic inequality, heterosexism, and other forms of oppression. Therefore, disability should not be siloed as a niche funding area. A disability perspective should inform philanthropy’s broader priorities, including arts, democracy, labor, gender justice, racial justice, immigration, and economic justice.

Disability arts funding moves us beyond check-box inclusion to investments in cultural leadership, democratic imagination, and more expansive visions of our collective future. These insights, promulgated by generations of disabled artists themselves, surface their commitment to raising the floor for everyone. 

Already, works like the documentary Crip Camp and companies like Kinetic Light are redefining mainstream understandings of disability, expanding our ideas of beauty, movement, access, and belonging. They remind us that disability culture is not peripheral to our cultural life—it is helping define it. As our cultural institutions become more accessible, they also become more creative, more responsive, and more welcoming. Curb cuts, captions, relaxed performances, and countless other innovations demonstrate that designing with disabled people strengthens our shared infrastructure.

The question for philanthropy, then, is not whether disability arts deserve greater investment. It is whether philanthropy is prepared to recognize disability culture as one of the most vital sources of artistic innovation, civic leadership, and democratic imagination of our time—and adapt and invest accordingly.

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