Inclusive Organizations

Best practices for inclusive organizations, including national and state agencies, Audubon chapters, bird clubs and other nature-based organizations, to be as inclusive and accessible as possible.

As with anything to do with accessibility and inclusivity, we often must ‘go out of our way’ to do it, and sometimes it may seem unnecessary. Often you may not know if anyone present benefitted from you going the extra mile… although, often, someone will have! Consider that you’re also setting the example for accessible and inclusive behavior in your community, and that by consistently working to do this you’re ensuring anybody with an accessibility challenge can opt in, rather than feeling unwelcome and excluded from the start. After all, the more people we can welcome and include in the birding community, the more people there will be who care about birds and the environment, and the more people who will be willing to act to protect it.

Make a commitment to inclusion and diversity, and tell everybody about it

With your Board of Directors, committees, members and more, make a commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA). Determine what your organization will do using specific, measurable statements you can use to hold yourselves accountable. For Audubon chapters and bird clubs, this may include establishing an IDEA Committee to carry out this work. (For ideas of what that work might be, read on!) Make sure your inclusion and diversity statement includes people with disabilities and other health concerns, people who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), and people who are LGBTQIA+. (For more information and resources for BIPOC birders, visit our page on Racism in Birding. For more about being welcoming of LGBTQIA+ folks, check out this Welcome Guide from the LGBTQ Alliance.)

Include a land acknowledgement on your website too; we have included ours in our footer so it’s visible on every page. Learn more about why this is important and how to begin, by reading this article from the Native Governance Center and this article in Audubon magazine.

Make this statement public, so anybody can see that you’re committed to this, in an Inclusivity and Diversity Statement on your website and social media. Be sure to review these commitments at least annually, and re-commit! Because it’s not enough to just think we’re being inclusive; we have to be intentionally inclusive.

Below are some examples of Inclusion and Diversity Statements in case they’re helpful to give you ideas for your own:

Hold regular accessible bird outings

Hold intentionally inclusive and accessible bird outings as part of your regular programming. Once a month is ideal, and even better if the outing leader or co-leader is someone who experiences an accessibility challenge themselves. Whether someone in a wheelchair attends or not, keep holding them — you’ll still be seeing birds on accessible trails! People who have invisible disabilities may come, and folks might not disclose to you that they really need accessible bird locations to go birding.

In your event write-up, be sure to include all accessibility information about the site/s you’ll be visiting. Read over Access Considerations so you know what to include (and why it’s important). For a wonderful example of how to do this, the Museum of Modern Art’s Accessibility page shows what to include and how.

Reach out to local disability organizations and community groups and invite them birding. See our Steps to Implement to learn more about doing this. Ask these folks what they need from you to enable them to go birding, and let them guide you in that. Get in touch with us, and consider writing for the Birdability Blog about what you did and why, so others can learn from your experiences and replicate them in their own communities!

For other events, make sure you including accessibility as a key planning component right from the beginning. (It’s much harder to add it in later as an afterthought!) For ideas on ensuring other non-birding events are accessible and disability-friendly, check out the Rooted in Rights checklist.

Website and social media

Web accessibility isn’t about ramps and paved trails, but about how people navigate a website. Many people who are blind or have low vision use screen reader software, which reads aloud information that fully sighted people see. Other users who have dyslexia, print disabilities, visual processing problems and more benefit from accessible websites too. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the industry standard for web accessibility; please refer to them. You can also run the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool on your website to see how it performs. Another great resource about web accessibility is from Harvard University.

• Always include an image description or alternate text for any photos or graphics, both on your website and in social media posts. Learn about what these are and why they’re important on the Birdability Blog here.

• Include captions on any videos shared on your website or social media. For instructions on how to do this, check out our step-by-step guide here.

• Use Camel Case with your hashtags, by capitalizing the first letter of each word. Rather than #birdingisforeverybody (which will be read by screen reader software as a random jumble of letters), type #BirdingIsForEverybody This makes it easier for everybody to read too!

• Use colors with strong contrast between them for any text and the background color. This helps everybody, but especially people with low vision. Learn more about contrast and other easy ways to ensure any text is readable, on the Birdability Blog.

• Include a land acknowledgement in social media posts about specific places, and on your website, acknowledging the Indigenous peoples of your organization’s area. Learn more about how to do that here, and use this map to help you determine who you need to acknowledge.

Remove financial barriers to access

• Whenever possible, for virtual or in-person programs, remove financial barriers to access. Perhaps you could have free events, or “pay what works”, or a “suggested donation”. Maybe you could seek grants or sponsorships to cover your costs, or create a scholarship fund, so that folks who don’t have access to financial resources can still participate.

• Consider having loaner binoculars, scopes or adaptive birding equipment available for your participants, visitors or members to borrow for free. This removes the financial barriers many beginner birders (and potential future birders) face, and may enable someone to try out a wheelchair mounted scope (for example) before buying one for themselves. For ideas, visit our Adaptive Birding Equipment page.

• Outdoor all terrain wheelchairs are wonderful too, like the ones Access Ability Wisconsin has freely available for use. Funding from a local hospital or community-based disability support group may help your nature center purchase one.

Zoom calls and webinars

• Ask people to introduce themselves with their name and their pronouns (she/her; they/their etc). Include your pronouns in your ‘name tag’ on Zoom (and in your email signature).

• Don’t rely only on images, graphics or text in PowerPoint presentations to convey your message; people who are blind or have low vision may be excluded from learning. Describe out loud any information that is presented visually, and inform your audience at the beginning of the event that you will be doing this. (People who have tuned in via their phone while driving, and people with an oncoming migraine who want to learn but cannot look at the screen will appreciate this too.)

Include the option of closed captions

Captions are similar to subtitles in movies — they are text that appears across the bottom of the screen as a form of written communication of what is being verbalized on the screen. This is useful for a lot of people, including those who want to participate but must remain quiet, people who need to turn down the volume due to sensory overload or a migraine, people for whom English isn’t their first language, and especially to people who are Deaf, deaf or Hard of Hearing. For more about captions, including how to add them to online videos, check out our step-by-step guide.

Zoom provides instructions here for how to do this on their platform. Recently Zoom enabled free captions on their paid accounts, but they have to be turned on by the account admin, and enabled in each meeting. Zoom are working on enabling free captions on all free accounts by fall 2021. However, if you need them, you can request to receive them earlier using this form.

There is also the option for someone in the meeting to type these captions themselves (called live closed captioning), or paying for a third party captioning service to provide them. Rev Live Captions is one of these third party services, and we have heard positive reports about the easy of use and accuracy of their service.

Keep videos on when possible, but microphones off

It’s not always possible, but keeping your video on allows people who are deaf or hard of hearing a better chance of lip reading, and everybody a better chance at understanding all the non-verbal communication we use. Background noise can make it really hard to understand someone when another person is speaking, so request that those not speaking turn their microphones off. While particularly helpful to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, everybody benefits from these.

Be aware of lighting

Presenters (and participants too, ideally!) should do their best to position their computer/camera and their body so that natural or artificial light falls on their face, without covering half of their face in shadow. This allows people who are Deaf, deaf or Hard of Hearing the best chance to lip read, and for people with low vision the best chance to see your face. Avoid being backlit, especially by a window behind you — seeing a silhouette of your head and shoulders means many people — especially people who have low vision or who benefit from lip reading — will miss much of what you’re trying to communicate. The contrast from a window behind you can also make it very uncomfortable for someone with low vision and glare sensitivity to even look at you. If you are unable to reposition your camera or your body, cover the window with blinds or curtains, and try to find a light source to help illuminate your face.

Provide honorariums

Although it can feel really lovely to be asked to share your opinion, experiences or knowledge with others, it is unfair to expect someone — especially someone with a disability, or who is BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ — to do this for free. Like everyone else’s, their time is valuable, and the information they impart is often invaluable. Whether this is for a presentation or panel at your organization, or you’d like their advice or opinion on a new accessible trail you’re working on, demonstrating your respect for them and their labor with an honorarium is important. (Read more about the importance of this here and here.)

Many people may be more than happy not to receive an honorarium, but there’s a difference between being offered something and declining it, and not being offered it at all. We recommend you state your honoraria up front, in your initial contact with the person who you’d like to engage. Often, this will have some impact on whether they say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to your invitation. If this isn’t stated initially, it can cause confusion over expectations, or force the person into the awkward and uncomfortable position of having to ask if one will be provided. If they decline to receive an honorarium, perhaps you could donate that money on their behalf to another organization that supports the work you’re trying to learn more about?

How much you should provide depends on your budget, the amount of time you’re asking of the person (including travel time, planning and any practice or rehearsals required), and how much emotional labor they will use. As a starting place, we recommend $100 for participation on panels when no preparation is required, and $250 for presentations — which require many hours of preparation. Yes, it is an expense. So budget for it! It is best practice, and it is part of being intentionally inclusive.

Consider this: famous birders or authors often charge $500-1000 for a presentation because they know organizations will pay that for their time and expertise. If organizations want to have this person present information or expertise to their members, they will have to budget for that cost. Although these other folks might not be famous, their information and personal experience is just as valuable and important, so include speakers honorariums for all programs in your budget!

A double-sided, printable handout is available if you would like to have hard copies of this information at your site. Please be sure to attribute this resource to Birdability, so others will know where to come to find more! If you do this, please also consider making a donation to support us in creating more resources like this so we can ensure they’re freely available to all who do not have the ability to pay. Thank you!

Photo in page header: Roniq Bartanen of Shebirds. Taken in Magnuson Park, Seattle, Washington state.