Disability Culture Lab

The Political Model of Disability is a new lens on disability. We are so grateful to Keely Cat-Wells for breaking down what it means, and lessons for employers, policymakers, and philanthropy. You can read the full memo at Tinyurl.com/DisCoNSV and this article via Forbes: www.forbes.com/sites/keelycatwells/2026/10/01/a-new-disability-memo-has-lessons-for-employers-funders-and-policymakers/

We have ten policy priorities that grew out of our Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo. These policy priorities include creating interdependent, joyful communities that support disabled people, the abolition of institutionalization and pipelines to incarceration for disabled people, and a National Guaranteed Income for all that does not reduce or impact SSI or SSDI payments or benefit eligibility.

You can read the full memo at the link in our bio: tinyurl/com/DisCoNSV.

In our Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo, we identified key problems that the disability community is facing and solutions that will help us in our fight for liberation. Here are those problems and solutions. Read the whole memo via the link in our bio: tinyurl.com/DisCoNSV.

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Here are our three priority narratives for the upcoming year that came out of our conversations for the Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo. Read the whole memo via the link in our bio: at tinyurl.com/DisCoNSV.

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In a new Disability Culture Currents piece, our Executive Director, Meier Galblum Haigh, and Managing Director, Kenrya Rankin, write about The U.S. Political Model of Disability, a new way of understanding disability in the United States that arose from DCL’s Disability Community + Movement North Star Visioning process.

In it, they explore why racialized and otherwise marginalized communities, especially those deeply scapegoated by politicians and in the media, experience disability at rates far higher than average — and how a privileged few shape and define who is and is not disabled through systems of power, violence, and plunder.

From Meier + Kenrya: “Systemic oppression — from transphobia, anti-Black racism, and colonialism to capitalism, climate change, and imperialism — is disabling.”

Read more at the link in our bio: tinyurl.com/DCCurrents.

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Through the process of writing our Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo, we developed The U.S. Political Model of Disability. It’s a new way to think about disability, where we understand that disability is shaped by policy choices made by the government and people and organizations with extreme power, like billionaires and multi-national corporations. Read more about this in our full memo at the link in our bio: tinyurl.com/DisCoNSV.

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Today, to ground the work we’ve done for the Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo, we’re exploring the big picture of disability in the United States. All forms of oppression are disabling, and disabled people in the U.S. are most likely to already be marginalized in some other way. In order to fight for liberation, we must include disabled people in every movement, because there’s no winning without us. Check out the North Star Visioning memo at the link in our bio, tinyurl.com/DisCoNSV, and stay tuned for more posts on the memo.

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As we launch the Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo, Meier Galblum Haigh, our Executive Director, and Kenrya Rankin, our Managing Director, reflect on the north star visioning process and what they learned from it in a new piece for Nonprofit Quarterly (IG: NPQuarterly). Through this process, the community members collectively created a vision for liberation for the disability community. You can read the full piece at the link in our bio: linktr.ee/DisabilityCultureLab.

We are so excited to share the output of a project we’ve been working on for the past year! For our Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo, Disability Culture Lab convened nearly 50 members of the disability community to dream about our collective liberation and the steps we need to take to get there. You can read the full memo at here: tinyurl.com/DisCoNSV, and stay tuned as we share essential takeaways from this memo.

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We will soon release the Disability Community + Movement North Star Memo, the result of a year of collaborative, cross-disability visioning on liberation for our community in the United States! Interested in learning more? Join our community briefing on September 25, 2026, from 12 to 1:30 p.m. ET via Zoom. Register via the link in our bio: tinyurl.com/DisCoBriefing.

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