Introduction
MacArthur’s mission is building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Our mission leads with justice because we believe that justice is the essential condition for universal human dignity, equitable opportunity, and shared prosperity.
We live our mission through the Just Imperative, which is grounded in the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Just Imperative requires that we interrogate our decisions, actions, and practices to ensure that they are not reinforcing an unjust status quo or producing unjust outcomes. With this principle in mind, one of the areas we focused on was increasing access and participation for people with disabilities. This includes the built environment and the digital environment. Many interactions take place online, and when digital content contains barriers that prevent and limit people with disabilities from interacting with it, we unintentionally exclude a large portion of our audience.
So, in 2016, we committed to meeting Level AA Website Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 established by the World Wide Web Consortium. We subsequently conducted an accessibility assessment and redesigned our website. We have implemented systems to better enable access for people with a range of disabilities, such as people who are vision impaired, who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who have fine motor or neurologic issues. As we continue this work, we want to make sure other organizations have the opportunity to do the same. We engaged WebAIM to provide tangible steps and clear guidance to make websites more accessible. We hope this guide will be a valuable resource to help grantees and nonprofits establish more inclusive digital environments.
– John Palfrey
President, MacArthur Foundation
