On Innovation and Expectation:

Microenterprise and Disability in 2010

by Patti Lind, Co-Founder & Executive Director, The Abilities Fund

I so appreciate WID’s request for a biennial update on microenterprise development for people with disabilities.  It affords me the opportunity to collect my thoughts on where we have been, where we are today, and where we are going in the future.  As a twenty plus year practitioner in the microenterprise and access to credit fields, “we” applies to the disability community and the agencies and organizations that facilitate business development.  Unfortunately, the review of advancement in microenterprise for people with disabilities isn’t as positive as I had hoped.  By my account, what seems to be happening is a massive case of unrealistic expectations coupled with lack of innovation.  We’re in a stall pattern that is unfortunate - but not uncorrectable.
In December 2008, I wrote the following for EQUITY:

“As micro has emerged into the disability world, variations on the theme have occurred.  A pronounced vision of a “business model” has collided with a “rehabilitation model.”  The business model is centered on business development when it is both personally viable for the individual and feasible from a business perspective.  It assumes that an individual will, somehow and someway, invest in their own future.  Conversely, the rehabilitation model presents a sort of entitlement to business ownership based upon the disability factor all the while assuming that public support for the business is because of disability.  These models have taken us to a real crossroads as we look to the future.  Self employment is never an entitlement to any population nor is the availability of funding.  Self employment doesn’t work because you are a part of a population.  Rather, it works when a self motivated individual comes up with a business idea that is viable in the marketplace.  It has nothing to do with physical ability anymore than it does the color of skin.  It won’t work for everyone and it certainly doesn’t work 100% within any one population.  Self employment does apply to those who own a business idea and are willing to risk their time, talent, and ego to learn whether or not it can work."

The vision of self employment for people with disabilities remains fixed on the rehabilitation model rather than the business model.  This is true primarily for service providers who, themselves, have so little knowledge of self employment that they fail to understand what it takes for successful business start up and sustainment.   Both public and private rehabilitation agencies and organizations seem to have a high expectation of self employment as an employment option and tend to spread it like butter across the population of individuals with disabilities who want and need to find economic self sufficiency.  The history of microenterprise tells us that, regardless of gender and ethnicity, among other measures, self employment is a means to economic empowerment when it is well matched to an individual’s experience, skill sets, and, in certain cases, education, and not because of gender or ethnicity.  Let’s take the lesson and learn from it – disability should not be the qualifying factor for getting into business and, therefore, the rehabilitation model is ineffective.  Self employment works when a self motivated individual comes up with a business idea that is viable in the marketplace.  It has nothing to do with physical ability anymore than it does the color of skin.  It won’t work for everyone and it certainly doesn’t work 100% within any one population.  Self employment does apply to those who own a business idea and are willing to risk their time, talent, and ego to learn whether or not it can work¹.  The bottom line is that self employment requires a business approach.  It has no place in the tool chest of “options for everybody” but has everything to do with those who are positioned for and open to business ownership.

From reading An Analysis of Self-Employment Outcomes Within the Federal/State Vocational Rehabilitation System², we learn the unfortunate truth about the Vocational Rehabilitation system as a potential resource for individuals with disabilities who want to work and see self employment a vocational option to pursue.  The report notes, “An objective of the START-UP/USA project, funded by U.S. Department of Labor, The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), is to study the extent to which the Federal/State Vocational Rehabilitation Program supports self-employment vocational alternatives for individuals with disabilities. The purpose of this report is to provide an analysis of self-employment participation and outcomes by individuals with disabilities within the Federal/State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) System.”

The results show that, in a longitudinal study from 2003, 2005, and 2007, the national average of VR case closures has dropped from 2.0% annually to 1.7% annually³.  I have worked for years with many state rehabilitation agencies on increasing both the quantity and quality of self employment outcomes.  None of them want anything less than the best for the individuals they serve.  However, many of the agencies acknowledge the lack of training and experience their front line counseling staff have on facilitating self employment.  Others employ microenterprise specialists in their agencies and depend on their experience to train and prepare their consumers for business start up.  In most cases, few of those agencies discern between individuals who will start and sustain a business and, instead, use self employment as the option of choice for those who a) indicate their desire to be in business, or b) are unable to find employment.  I fully, completely, and deeply understand the lack of opportunity for employment for people with disabilities.  However, I equally understand the need for there to be more than a lack of other options and a desire to be in business in order for a person to succeed in it.  Believe me, I have succeeded and failed enough times in business to know that “want” isn’t enough and that success requires copious amounts of preparation, identification of resources, thorough planning and, quite frankly, a little luck. 

When we approach self employment using a business model, we tend to think in terms of “what would work for anyone to succeed in this type of business.”  Naturally, consideration must be given to specific issues for each individual, such as disability, when it comes to comprehensive planning for business start up and sustainment.  Using the business model as a guide for assisting promising entrepreneurs, disability is considered in the context of accommodation for the individual.  The business model also assumes that the capitalization of businesses will be focused on an individual’s resources and others that may be available to him/her.  The availability of public resources is considered as is the potential for other funding options, such as microloans from non-profit organizations that align small, flexible loans with the personal investment in one’s own future.

A lovely example of how innovation is sparked when an organization’s mindset is on the business model is the US Business Leadership Network’s Disability Supplier Diversity Program.  The USBLN’s vision for businesses owned by people with disabilities is not fixated on disability.  Conversely, it assumes that people with disability are in business successfully and that they have the same need to access markets as all businesses.  It is focused on making sure that the access to markets is on even ground so that business owners with disabilities can sustain operations and profit accordingly.  In this month’s EQUITY: Program of the Month, the opportunity is rolled out for disability-owned businesses to engage the corporate supplier diversity market much like women-owned and other culturally diverse populations do.  In this case, access to markets is the catalyst for the USBLN’s innovation in business development.  They are currently the champions of innovation in our disability microenterprise community and their work will open doors that previously were not only shut, they were unknown by people with disabilities.

We all have to raise our expectations of microenterprise as an option for an individual’s economic empowerment.  While ODEP’s investment in business training and technical assistance through START UP USA is an important component of what’s needed, it is just that – only a component.  They are in perfect position to study the effects of public policy on federally funding for business start up for all disadvantaged populations.  ODEP has a clear relationship with the Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration (whose Intermediary Loan program funds microlenders), and the potential for connecting to other federal agencies with resources directed to business training, technical assistance, and capitalization for disadvantaged populations.  Instead of looking sideways, let’s look forward as a means of inclusion in those programs and innovation among our colleagues.  I have faith that ODEP, the Social Security Administration, Rehabilitation Services Administration and their colleagues can be pivotal in moving microenterprise out of its current status and launching it forward.

For service providers, being a catalyst for high expectations and innovation is everybody’s responsibility at some level.  If we continue to be satisfied with old, worn out means and methods for encouraging self employment, our outcomes will continue to decline.  At the Abilities Fund, fresh approaches are welcome.  We’re in it for the long run because we know that self employment works for those who are well suited to it.  We can’t do it alone and don’t want to.  We are open to innovation and welcome you to discuss it with us.
 
Patti Lind is the co-founder and Executive Director of The Abilities Fund, the first nationwide nonprofit microbusiness development organization and financial institution focused exclusively on expanding the entrepreneurial opportunities and access to capital for people with disabilities.  Lind is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Enterprise Opportunity, a founding and current member of the Microenterprise National Advisory Council, and was awarded the 2008 Veterans Business Champion by the Small Business Administration and Veterans Affairs.

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¹Lind, Patti.  Equity. World Institute on Disability, Oakland, CA  December 2008.
²Grant Revell a,∗, Frank Smith b and Katherine Inge a
a Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Workplace Supports and Job Retention, Richmond, VA, USA
b Institute for Community Inclusion, Boston, MA, USA
³ibid.+