THE NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON PANEL ON SELF-EMPLOYMENT, SMALL BUSINESS
AND DISABILITY JULY 31, 1998
Here is the full list of recommendations reported by
the four workgroups at the Blue Ribbon Panel meeting. Each problem statement is
followed by a series of recommendations. Because the groups worked
independently, there is some duplication of suggestions. The recommendations
have been edited for readability without changing the meaning of the content.
FINANCE GROUP
Entrepreneurs with disabilities do not have access
to the sources of support and technical assistance available to other
entrepreneurs.
- Develop a national mentor network, a system of matching
appropriate mentors and proteges with disabilities in one-to-one relationships.
Mentors would assist proteges with establishing credit, developing and
implementing a business plan, developing resources and provide continuing
support after the business is operating. The network could be developed with
the assistance of local resources such as vocational rehabilitation counselors
and independent living centers.
- National and state vocational rehabilitation programs should
promote self-employment and small business ownership for their clients.
- National and state vocational rehabilitation programs should
partner with organizations and agencies such as the Small Business
Administration.
- The Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) should issue
a technical assistance circular on self-employment to state vocational
rehabilitation programs.
- RSA should develop legislative changes for facilitating small
business development by people with disabilities for the next amending cycle of
the Rehabilitation Act.
Entrepreneurs with disabilities have limited
access to capital.
- Create opportunities for entrepreneurs with disabilities to
more readily access capital, including overcoming the lack of owners equity
available to most entrepreneurs with a disabilities.
- RSA should encourage state vocational rehabilitation programs
to set aside a portion of innovation and expansion funds to be used as equity
grants for clients who have approved small business plans. The grants could
serve as the entrepreneur's equity to leverage Small Business Administration
(SBA) loan guarantees.
- RSA should establish pilot programs in one or two states,
using either grants or a revolving loan fund to provide owner's equity for
securing SBA loan guarantees for up to $100,000, for both business start-ups
and for continuation of existing business. Results from the pilot programs
should be disseminated quickly within the vocational rehabilitation system via
rehab-net.
- A national investment corporation should be developed as a
private source of capital for people with disabilities. Investors would include
major Wall Street financial firms and large national and regional banks.
Successful business owners with disabilities would select business plans from
entrepreneurs with disabilities to fund.
- Encourage state councils on disabilities and developmental
disability councils to offer grants to entrepreneurs with disabilities.
- The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) should
develop a program to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities
by educating bankers and lending institutions about the potential of people
with disabilities to be entrepreneurs and about fair loan practices for people
with disabilities.
(1) Develop educational packets. (2)
Distribute educational materials through its fifty state liaisons. (3)
Utilize the National Banker's Association and the Federal Reserve Bank to
disseminate the packets. (4) Encourage major national and regional banks to
conduct seminars for their lending officers at the state and local levels based
on the information in the packets. Reaching the chairman and presidents of
companies can be helpful. (5) Have bank examiners institute a check off
procedure in their audits to determine the number of loans given to people with
disabilities and how they are handled. (6) Get the commitment of the
Federal Reserve Bank and other regulatory entities to educate and regulate the
bank industry to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities
applying for loans.
- ODEP should promote an amendment to include people with
disabilities in the Fair Lending Act.
- Review the Community Reinvestment Act to identify
modifications that would enable entrepreneurs with disabilities to participate.
Most low income groups can be identified geographically, but that's not true
for people with disabilities.
Technical Assistance and Training Group
The entities that could support entrepreneurs with
disabilities, including bankers, the SBA, small business development centers
(SBDC), vocational rehabilitation (VR) programs, the Social Security
Administration (SSA) and micro lenders, do not coordinate their programs or
share resources.
- Utilize a community development model to bring together the
various stakeholders on state and local levels, either biannually or annually,
for education and networking. Possible conveners would be the governor's
office, the Office of Disability Employment Policy, or the SBA. The Association
for Persons in Supported Employment does something like this every year.
- Develop a national, dynamic, interactive Web site with state by
state resource data and Web links to each of those state data resources, as
well as national and international links for information sharing and
dissemination. The Web site would be used by counselors and others providing
services to entrepreneurs. The Office of Disability Employment Policy, the SBA,
the RSA or the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with
Disabilities could be involved in developing the site. The site could be
supported by the sales of advertising.
- Adapt existing resource materials into alternative formats, and
post them on the Web site so people at various levels of state and local
programs can download them. Funding could come from a combination of the SBA,
RSA, the National Institute on Disability Research and Rehabilitation and the
Office of Disability Employment Policy.
- Communication with culturally diverse groups must be done in a
culturally sensitive way and language appropriate. It is important to recognize
that diverse cultures have differing perceptions of disability and of
entrepreneurship.
- State VR programs should provide an annual contract with small
business development centers or micro enterprise agencies to provide technical
assistance services to start-up businesses and existing businesses owned by
people with disabilities.
- Technical assistance and training should be provided through
the Internet to remote or under served areas. Although many people with
disabilities do not yet own computers, many local library systems now make
computers and the Internet available to their patrons.
Self-employment is not viewed as an option for
people with disabilities by a large group of players.
- Create a positive image of entrepreneurs with disabilities by
publicizing stories of successful entrepreneurs with disabilities through a
variety of media, including public service announcements, articles placed in
publications such as Reader's Digest, articles placed directly into newspapers
throughout the country, articles by syndicated columnists and advertisements
placed on billboards or on buses.
- Incorporate information about self-employment or small business
ownership for people with disabilities in professional development programs,
such as including economic development in the curriculum for vocational
rehabilitation counselors.
- A national organization should develop the field of
self-employment for people with disabilities. It could be an existing group or
a new trade association, or it could be something along the lines of what
supported employment people do.
- Establish a central repository for research on
entrepreneurship by people with disabilities.
There is a lack of quality long-term follow-up and
mentoring for people with disabilities.
- Agencies should contract with SBDCs or micro programs to
provide follow-up mentoring using VR case dollars, Supplemental Security Income
funds or other work training dollars.
- The SBA should encourage SBDCs to contract with vocational
rehabilitation programs for counseling services for individuals with
disabilities.
Current measures of success and case closure are
inappropriate for entrepreneurs with disabilities.
- Give extra credits or rating incentives to vocational
rehabilitation counselors for placing clients into self-employment or small
business ownership. For example, if the counselor earns one credit for closing
a client's case because the client was hired by an employer, the counselor
would earn two or three credits for closing a client as an entrepreneur to
recognize that it takes the counselor longer to work with an entrepreneur.
- Establish a time line of at least six months to a year from
the time the business becomes profitable before determining if the client's
case can be closed.
Concerns about the effect the health of an
entrepreneur with a disability on his or her ability to operate a business
affect the ability of the entrepreneur to find funding.
- Lenders should require a short-term and long-term contingency
plan with specific alternatives for maintaining the business should the owner
be unable to do so.
- Individuals providing technical assistance to entrepreneurs
with disabilities should assure that a contingency plan is included in all
business plans.
Entrepreneurs Group
- People with disabilities fear the loss of medical insurance
coverage that could result from work activity. # Access to universal,
affordable and comprehensive healthcare coverage that meets the needs of people
with disabilities and their dependents should be ensured.
- Give front line service providers, such as vocational
rehabilitation counselors, the training necessary to assist recipients of SSI
to write PASS plans which set aside money to buy private insurance.
- Establish policy that requires rehabilitation counselors to
analyze recipient business plans for the provision of health insurance.
- Establish a pool for insurance coverage for entrepreneurs with
disabilities guaranteed by the federal government, as they do now for flood
insurance.
- Continue Medicare coverage after business start-ups.
- Develop sliding fee scales for HMO purchase, possibly through
SSI or medical reimbursements.
- Propose legislation that prohibits denial of coverage for
durable medical equipment for certain diagnoses. # Develop a consumer
collaborative for the purchase of HMO coverage at group rates.
- Establish a committee representing health maintenance
organizations, the Health Care Financing Administration, the SBA, health
insurance companies and consumers with disabilities to establish a mechanism
for the purchase of affordable health care for entrepreneurs with disabilities.
- Encourage existing in-home support services programs to
provide matching funding to pay for attendants for at least three years from
the time the person opens his or her business.
- Allow entrepreneurs to buy health insurance through plans
offered to federal employees. Adding disabled entrepreneurs to that large group
would do the least damage to an experience rated program.
Entrepreneurs with disabilities encounter
difficulties entering the marketplace because of social barriers and negative
attitudes.
- Develop a public education strategy that promotes the viability
of self-employment as an opportunity for people with disabilities.
- Produce and distribute an entrepreneurs resource book for and
by people with disabilities.
- Produce videos featuring successful entrepreneurs with
disability to be distributed through a broad spectrum of channels, such as
cable television and the financial services industries.
- Produce public service announcements about resources that are
available for entrepreneurs with disabilities.
- Encourage high schools, colleges and universities to offer
courses on starting and maintaining a business for people with disabilities.
- The transition requirements of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act should be reviewed for applicability to
entrepreneurship.
- Encourage state councils on development disabilities and state
vocational rehabilitation agencies to offer grants to provide entrepreneurship
training, including assertiveness training to people with disabilities.
- Develop a comprehensive Web site that provides technical
assistance and bulletin boards on specific issues and is hot linked to all
relevant entities.
- Market entrepreneurship to potential entrepreneurs with
disabilities and their service provider networks.
- Build a network of education and support services for people
with disabilities, including quality counseling geared toward personal choice
decision making.
- Mobilize business associations, financial institutions and
disability advocacy organizations to develop public education campaigns on the
abilities of disabled entrepreneurs.
- Encourage trade organizations to include people with
disabilities, including provision of reasonable accommodation to members with
disabilities.
There is a need to develop highly skilled
entrepreneurs with disabilities through leadership training and capacity
building.
- Use professional small business trade associations, such as the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to encourage specialized trade groups in the relevant
industries to mentor businesspeople with disabilities on a peer-to-peer basis
to assist them develop business skills.
- Enable vocational rehabilitation counselors and other relevant
service providers to have access to knowledgeable experts in the field.
- Educate people with disabilities about self-employment
opportunities.
- Mandate that vocational rehabilitation programs offer
workshops in small business development and that they provide long distance
learning opportunities.
- Help entrepreneurs with disabilities identify training needs
and obtain best practice training available in their communities.
- Promote legislation that creates the same opportunities in
self-employment for people with disabilities that exist for other minority
groups.
- Develop training programs tailored to the needs of people with
disabilities.
- Distribute information about SBA loan guarantee programs to
vocational rehabilitation counselors and people with disabilities.
- Develop an information bank of resources about business
development in alternative formats.
- Encourage vocational rehabilitation programs and small
business development centers to connect entrepreneurs with disabilities with
financial managers, business consultants, attorneys, etc.
To establish entrepreneurship for people with
disabilities as a viable financial alternative, work disincentives inherent in
income support programs must be eliminated.
- Create flexible policies for maintaining public income support
during small business start-ups.
- Encourage SBDCs to network people with disabilities and
disability related associations with vocational rehabilitation counselors
because they have resources that would help entrepreneurs.
- Eliminate provisions of programs that penalize entrepreneurs
with disabilities.
- Create financial incentives such as tax breaks for people with
disabilities to become entrepreneurs.
- Eliminate financial disincentives to work for people with
disabilities.
- Create tax credits to allow entrepreneurs with disabilities to
meet disability-related work expenses. This would level the playing field by
removing disability-related expenses, such as reader's and personal assistants,
from the business's costs.
Public policies and procedures are not coordinated
and often conflict.
- Create a consistent national public policy agenda that
supports self-employment for people with disabilities.
- Define persons with disabilities as a socially and
economically disadvantaged group with under the SBA 8(a) program.
- Convene a task force of top level federal government agencies
to resolve policy conflicts. The Internal Revenue Service, the SBA, the Social
Security Administration and the departments of Labor, Education, Transportation
and Housing need to collaborate.
- Analyze existing public policies that impact self-employment
for people with disabilities and determine how they conflict or compliment each
other.
- Determine which policies are counterproductive and eliminate
them.
- Eliminate the inconsistencies between policies by having
agencies work together.
- Develop a partnership between SBA and RSA to promote
entrepreneurship for people with disabilities.
- Create local networks of vocational rehabilitation programs
and small business service providers.
- Create low interest loan funds and grant programs to fund
business start-ups for people with disabilities.
- Review state level policy and procedures that impact
entrepreneurship for people with disabilities for conflicts and disincentives.
- Encourage states to designate lottery money to develop new
initiatives for people with disabilities.
- Stimulate discussion about private sector involvement
supporting entrepreneurs with disabilities.
- Identify and publicize best practices in promoting
entrepreneurship for people with disabilities.
Government Programs
People with disabilities, small business service
providers and the public do not believe that people with disabilities cannot be
successful entrepreneurs.
- Educate persons with disabilities about the viability of
self-employment and small business ownership.
- Dispel myths believed by service providers, funders and others
regarding the difficulties and costs of self-employment and small business
ownership.
- Encourage all government agencies to fully participate in
helping people with disabilities to enter self-employment and small business
ownership, rather than allowing them to only refer clients to vocational
rehabilitation programs.
- Increase the effectiveness of existing small business programs
for people with disabilities and hold them accountable for outcomes.
- Develop and encourage a consistent message about the viability
of self-employment and small business employment for persons with disabilities
and communicate that to all the constituencies.
- Facilitate informed choice for individuals, including the
choice of small business employment or self-employment as a vocational goal.
- Identify viable models of self-employment and small business
ownership for people with disabilities and disseminate information about them
to individuals with disabilities and their service providers.
- Accurately measure and communicate the true participation rate
of people with disabilities in the work force, including their participation in
self-employment and small business ownership.
- Establish realistic milestones for increasing the number of
people with disabilities in self-employment or small business ownership.
- Measure the increase in the gross domestic product created by
entrepreneurs with disabilities.
- Establish a baseline of information about services for people
with disabilities by requesting business development programs, such as the
small business development centers and micro enterprise programs, to report the
extent of their services and supports for people with disabilities.
People with disabilities face many disincentives
to work.
- Establish access to affordable healthcare for entrepreneurs
with disabilities.
- Allow the Social Security Administration to phase out the
Social Security cash benefit as a person's earned income goes up, to provide a
slow transition off the rolls.
- Develop legislation that would simplify that process of getting
back on the Social Security roles by continuing the extended period of
eligibility ad infinitum, so a person with a disability would be returned to
payment status when his or her income dropped below a certain level.
- Conduct a major initiative to change the attitude of federal
and state agencies about the ability of people with disabilities to
successfully be self-employed or own small businesses.
- Ensure that vocational rehabilitation counselors and managers
receive accurate information about the success rate of small businesses.
- Secure a commitment to promote small business and
self-employment for people with disabilities from top policy makers and
administrators, starting with the President. Commitments should be secured from
all levels of the service delivery system, including cabinet secretaries and
federal and state agency administrators. Included in the commitments should be
the availability of necessary and sufficient resources to support entrepreneurs
with disabilities.
- Establish a method for rewarding vocational rehabilitation
counselors with additional credit for assisting a client to achieve
self-employment or small business ownership.
- Develop legislation that would require the use of vocational
rehabilitation funds to leverage funds from outside sources.
- Conduct pilot projects to explore the effectiveness of
differing approaches to financing entrepreneurs with disabilities, providing
incentives to vocational rehabilitation counselors, and encouraging people with
disabilities to consider self-employment or small business ownership as a
viable career.
- Take advantage of the political support for entrepreneurship to
request changes necessary to encourage entrepreneurship by people with
disabilities.
- Convene a one day meeting of entrepreneurs with disabilities
and disability consumer advocacy organizations to stimulate more ideas about
the future direction of policy and program initiatives.
- Ask the President to have at least three dinners a year with
corporate leaders to ask, "What are you doing about people with disabilities-
Come back in six months and I'll give you another dinner and tell me what
you've done. "
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