Opening Doors to Opportunity: How the Museum, Arts, & Culture Access Consortium Is Expanding Access in Arts and Culture

Some of the most effective ideas for improving accessibility don’t begin with a major investment or a new program. They start with conversations among people committed to making live event and entertainment experiences more accessible. What began as informal conversations among museum professionals in the 1990s has evolved into the Museum, Arts, & Culture Access Consortium (MAC), a collaborative network of cultural workers and disability advocates from New York City and the surrounding region. Kerry Candeloro  (top right), MAC’s Co-Chair, has a particularly fitting description of the organization. “If someone asked me to describe MAC in a few words, I’d talk about us as a watering hole. We are a space where people can come together and share ideas.” Aliza Greenberg (bottom right), MAC’s Project Leader for Supporting Transitions , explains how the organization has expanded its reach. “MAC started as a number of professionals who worked in cultural organizations doing accessibility work coming together to learn from each other … a lot of it through shared practice and professional development. Then we grew and included our membership program , which provides even more ways for people to connect, whether they are independent access consultants, organizations or agencies that serve people with disabilities.” That exchange of knowledge is particularly valuable in a field where accessibility practices continue to evolve and organizations can learn from their peers’ successes. Candeloro also points to an important shift in who is leading that work, with more professionals with disabilities bringing their lived experience to accessibility initiatives. “It is the whole ‘nothing about us without us’ mentality that we’re doing the work for each other. And we’re all learning different things in different organizations,” Candeloro says. “My co-chair is currently working in development at a children’s museum, and I work in arts admin at a performing arts institution. So, we come from two different kinds of backgrounds, and we work together. We’re learning things from each other, and I think that’s a really wonderful thing about MAC.” For Candeloro, the goal is to help cultural organizations build on the foundation established by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and think more broadly about what inclusion can look like. “[The ADA] is the bare minimum. It doesn’t really speak to inclusion as much as it speaks to having an elevator, but that elevator can be your service elevator at the back of the building. How do we create inclusive entrances, inclusive welcoming? I think that’s what MAC is really great at, and that’s what this whole peer network is really doing, is thinking beyond the letter of the law, making disabled access work for ourselves who are disabled, and trying to figure out how to actually create the future that we’re dreaming of.” One example of how MAC helps cultural organizations put those ideas into practice is its Supporting Transitions project, which creates opportunities for adults with autism and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. “Supporting Transitions started as a project to advance opportunities for children with autism in cultural organizations. That went really well, and the opportunities for children with autism grew exponentially. The question from the community was, well, what happens when these autistic children are not children anymore. Supporting Transitions was born from that, to make more opportunities … in recreation, community connections and life skills development in cultural organizations, and our main area of focus, which is [the hiring of adults with autism as employees, interns, and volunteers].” The transition out of school can be particularly challenging for young adults with developmental disabilities, who may lose access to established support systems and structured activities. Finding employment can also be difficult. MAC recognized that cultural organizations were uniquely positioned to help, not only as places where people gather and participate in community life, but also as employers offering a plethora of careers. “Cultural organizations are such diverse places, in terms of the opportunities they offer, both to engage socially and also through employment,” says Greenberg. While audiences may be most familiar with ticket office employees and ushers, a wide range of roles support the experience behind the scenes. “I used to work at the Metropolitan Opera, and they employ over 2,000 people a year, from the cafeteria to the ushers,” notes Greenberg. That diversity of roles is particularly valuable when it comes to customized employment. “I think cultural organizations offer the opportunity to really fit a job with the skills of a particular individual, which is really where we see the most success for employment with adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities,” explains Greenberg. “Customized employment has really [proven to be] a successful approach to match skills with tasks instead of trying to fit someone into an all-encompassing job experience.” Supporting Transitions helps organizations turn that approach into practical employment opportunities. Specifically, MAC works with cultural institutions to develop accessible job descriptions and connect with prospective candidates. It can also provide training and job coaching to support employees as they settle into their roles. Greenberg explains that reviewing a job description can reveal requirements that unnecessarily exclude otherwise qualified candidates. “For example, sometimes organizations like to throw things in there like ‘must be able to lift 50 pounds,’ but we don’t know why or what that task relates to,” she says. “We look at every piece of the job description and make sure it is clear and relevant to the tasks that the employee would be doing.” MAC also helps organizations develop more accessible interview processes and establish ways for employees to request accommodations. “We provide training to the entire staff of the organization. Sometimes it’s just the department that the apprentice will be working with. Sometimes it’s the full organization, depending on its size. That training covers everything from making the organization as welcoming as possible to everyday accommodations that might come up, and how to put an accommodation request process in place so employees feel comfortable voicing their needs and getting the support they need to do the job.” The impact of Supporting Transitions is evident in the experiences of several New York cultural institutions. At the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, MAC initially provided accessibility training for visitor services staff and supported internships in the retail department. The museum subsequently developed its own partnerships and continued creating opportunities independently. “It’s really exciting to hear about the different partnerships that they’ve formed and how they have really continued this work,” says Greenberg. “Our goal with Supporting Transitions is to remove ourselves from the equation. We want cultural organizations to do this work. We’ll provide support and resources where needed, but we want it to be a natural part of everybody’s everyday operations.” Other institutions have demonstrated similar success. “The Guggenheim Museum had an apprentice for several years through us. Then they created a portal on their website to really support others in doing this work,” notes Greenberg. “The Guggenheim Museum has definitely been really committed to creating these opportunities and spreading them.” She adds, “The Frick Museum has been one of the organizations employing adults with developmental disabilities from the very beginning. They are a partner with Job Path, which is an agency that supports adults with developmental disabilities, and they have several long-time employees. The Jewish Museum has also continued to employ people.” This video details an internship created at The Jewish Museum as part of the Supporting Transitions project. While Supporting Transitions offers one example of MAC’s impact, the organization also makes accessibility knowledge and resources available to cultural institutions of all sizes. For smaller organizations, limited budgets and staffing can make expanding accessibility initiatives seem daunting. Candeloro understands those challenges firsthand. “MAC is basically a volunteer organization. A lot of us who are on the board of MAC and who do a lot of that kind of work are working other full-time jobs at other places, and so we are constantly dealing with this idea of we are a small, fiscally sponsored organization trying to make things work,” she explains. Her advice is to start by looking at what’s possible with the resources already available. “I think my biggest advice is to get creative and get crafty,” Candeloro says. MAC has offered workshops called Quick Wins to help organizations identify practical improvements they can make without significant financial investment. Greenberg believes that communication is essential to finding solutions that work. “It’s really about relationships and talking with disabled people and working together with the community to figure out what is going to work best, given the resources that are there,” she says. “So, the communication is really the key.” Partnerships between organizations can also help make resources go further. For example, Greenberg suggests a smaller venue that needs assistive listening devices for a single event might be able to borrow equipment from a larger institution rather than purchasing its own. Looking Beyond New York Although MAC’s work centers in and around New York City, its collaborative model has relevance far beyond the region. The consortium has connected with accessibility networks in other parts of the United States, including Chicago, Michigan and Seattle. It also offers virtual programming and professional development opportunities that can benefit cultural professionals elsewhere. Greenberg would welcome seeing more organizations adopt a similar approach. “We have long hoped that there would be MAC-type organizations all over the country and the world,” she says. “This consortium-based collective approach to access is so effective.” “The great thing about consortiums is that no consortium is positioning itself as the experts that know everything about access,” notes Candeloro. “We’re sharing a lot of information.” Looking ahead, Greenberg hopes to see accessibility become increasingly integrated into every aspect of cultural organizations, with artists with disabilities playing a part in shaping that future. She points to Kinetic Light , a disability arts organization that weaves accessibility into its creative process and audience experience, as an example of what’s possible. “There are many really interesting disabled artists who are reimagining how art gets consumed,” says Greenberg. “Kinetic Light is one organization that I’ll shout out that’s thinking so deeply about how their dance productions are accessible — from who’s running their organization to the artistry in the rehearsal room to the audience experience, and how it’s embedded in the work they do, and not an add-on.” For MAC, the long-term ambition is to see that same commitment become a natural part of how cultural organizations operate, supported by knowledge and experience of the communities they serve. And while MAC continues to expand its reach, Greenberg has an interesting perspective on what its ultimate success might look like. “As an access consultant, I want to get to a place with an organization where they don’t need to employ me anymore. That’s an interesting model for a field of work, but it is really the goal to be obsolete.” You May Also Like From Reactive to Ready: Building Accessibility Into Customer Service Accessibility Is Everyone’s Job: How the New Victory Theater Built a Culture of Inclusion