Jennifer Laszlo-Mizrahi

Respectability

July 2, 2013

1:00 PM CT

Operator: The following is a recording of the Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

teleconference with RespectAbility on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013 at 1:00 p.m. Central Time.

Excuse me everyone. We now have our speakers in conference. Please be aware that

each of your lines is in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of the presentation we will

open the floor for questions. At that time, instruction will be given as to the procedure to

follow if you would like to ask a question. I would now like to turn today’s conference

over to Donn Weinberg. Mr. Weinberg, please begin.

Donn Weinberg: Well, thank you. I’m Donn Weinberg and I’m currently

Executive Vice President of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. We are a

major funder in a number of areas, including in disabilities and in workforce

development. Our foundation as a whole makes grants of about $100 million a year and

a substantial portion of that goes to those two areas, along with some other areas too. I

wanted to welcome everybody who is on this call. We understand that about 255 people

have signed up for it, and we welcome all of you. And as, not Jennifer Mizrahi, but as the

Jennifer who preceded me on this call indicated, there will be an ample opportunity for

comments and questions after our scheduled speakers have spoken.

I wanted to say to you that the RespectAbility U.S.A. organization is something that we

have just started. It’s been inspired by our desire to be of assistance to people with

disabilities in the United States, who are seeking a piece of the American Dream. In

other words, to be able to participate inclusively in an integrated fashion and achieve

whatever their motivation and abilities will allow them to achieve without interference

from irrational kinds of policies or practices. And many of you have seen the mission

statement, and we think that that’s a good indication of the spirit behind what we’re trying

to do. We have a Board of Directors, we have a Board of Advisors, we have a number of

consultants and people already on staff, and we also wanted to thank the Autism Society

of America because they are providing fiscal agent services and our home for purposes

of tax-deductible contributions. At the very least, pending the time when RespectAbility

U.S.A. receives, formally, its own 501(c)(3) recognition by the IRS. We are a non-profit

corporation in Washington D.C. covering the entire nation, but we are waiting for our

501(c)(3) designation. We believe that it’s very important that people with disabilities

who are capable of working and participating in society have that opportunity. There are

a number of corporations and other employers that successfully employ people with

disabilities and have found that it’s in their own self-interest to do so. We tend to believe

that when employers do things purely for charity it’s relatively unsustainable. But when

they realize that people with disabilities who have talents and a desire to work will make

excellent employees, loyal employees, hard-working employees, then when they try it

they find that it actually is a win-win situation for everyone. Because we believe that the

goal, practically speaking, is to help increase the number and percentage of Americans

with disabilities to engage in gainful employment, be able, when they’re so inclined, to

start and sustain their own businesses, join the middle class, participate in their

communities, as fully as their abilities and efforts will take them.

So, that’s why we’re launching this. And I wanted to turn this over for a second to a few

other people to make some comments, and then we’ll ultimately return to Jennifer

Mizrahi, who is our President, and she’ll be talking a little more detailed. So, first I’d like

to turn it over to one of our Board members, Doc Sweitzer, to make a few statements,

and then right after Doc, Shelley Cohen, another one of our Board members will speak.

And then I’ll introduce, briefly, Congressman Sherman. So Doc, if you would say a few

words.

Doc Sweitzer: Absolutely. First of all, I want to thank Donn for the

outstanding leadership as we launch this. It’s been a terrific experience and we’re

moving quickly in the right direction. And I also want to say I’m honored to be part of this

and honored to be on this call. As I looked at the list, the huge list of participants, and I

want to thank all of you for taking this time and joining, I looked at it and I thought, so

many great people and what unites all of us or what brings us all in common is that we’re

all about making a difference. We spend our lives trying to make a difference in

whatever way we can. And in this world that we live in, which is highly partisan, a lot of

gridlock, a lot of frustration, this issue is a real opportunity to transcend that and it’s an

issue that unites us. It’s about jobs, it’s about opportunities, it’s about a shot at the

American Dream, and I believe very strongly that this is an issue, and the approach that

we are taking gives us a real opportunity to get something done and to make a

difference. And as I said from the beginning, that’s what we do. So, I’d like to thank

everybody for taking this time. I hope you’ll join us. I think this is a winning endeavor. In

fact, I know it’s a winning endeavor, and I think it’s just the opportunity we want to make

a difference. And so let’s just join in and let’s get it done. Thank you.

Donn Weinberg: Great. Thank you, Doc. Shelley? Shelley Cohen?

Shelley Cohen: Hi. Hello, everyone. I also want to say congratulations and

thank you to everybody who has called in for this really remarkable phone conversation.

I want to say that I’ve come to the table from a personal perspective of having had a

child with disabilities, as I’m sure many of the people who have called in can relate to. I

think that here the opportunity with RespectAbility U.S.A. is so immense because

everything that has happened in the disabilities movement in the past 20 years has

really happened on a grassroots level, from families who have been affected with a

member of the family having a disability, or a person with a disability themselves. And

although progress has been made, we still have a long way to go. And RespectAbility

offers a training ground and offers and ability for all of us to really work together in a very

bipartisan unified way where we can have a much stronger voice as a voting bloc, as a

group of individuals who have something very important to say, and bring a lot to the

table. And I think under the leadership of Donn Weinberg and Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, I

think we have a really winning combination here that we can really affect a change in the

whole disabilities world. And I think it’s really a wonderful opportunity and I’m really very

excited about it.

Donn Weinberg: Thanks, Shelley. And next up for some brief comments, we

have Congressman Brad Sherman from Sherman Oaks, California, and he wanted to

make a few comments too. And thank you for joining our call, Congressman.

Brad Sherman: Well, it’s good to be with you. Glad to be here for

RespectAbility’s official launch. I want to be involved in this organization, in part because

I just know how important it is that people with disabilities have an opportunity to enter

the workforce, both for our economy and for their sense of pride and accomplishment.

My friend, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, I’ve known her for 16 years and I’ve seen her ability

to have an effect on public policy and public opinion, both domestically and around the

world, and I think that this is going to be a successful organization. I look forward to

working with Donn Weinberg and the entire Board, and I look forward to the day where

it’s just considered expected that, to the full extent possible, those with disabilities are

motivated, capable, proud, self-supporting, and contributing citizens. And I’ll encourage

everyone on this call to be involved with RespectAbility, whether it’s through advocacy,

leadership, fundraising, or any other way to support their efforts. And let me turn it back

to you.

Donn Weinberg: Alright. Thank you, Congressman. And now I want to bring

on Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, who is our President. This organization is really a dream that

she and a few others have put together, and those of us who have spoken thus far have

joined in with her to help bring this dream to fruition. Jennifer is our new President. She

can tell you something about her own history and she can tell you about what her game

plan is. We have, of course, a business plan, and many of you have probably seen the

PowerPoint. But anyhow, let me turn it over to Jennifer.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Thank you, Donn. Thank you so much for being our

founding Chairman, and thanks to the two cofounders that we heard from, Doc and

Shelley, who are extraordinary people. It is just a delight to be with 255 of my new best

friends who are on this call with us today. I’d like to thank also Louis Zweig, who is a

brand new Board member who is from Texas. He’s a philanthropist and a marketing

leader. I’d like to thank from our Board of Advisors Kelly Buckland, who is of course the

Executive Director of NCIL, Steve Eidelman, who’s also on our Board of Advisors is one

of the leading academics, but he also has a background from the Joseph Kennedy

Foundation and The Arc. I want to thank Donna Meltzer from our Board of Advisors for

her work at the Council on Developmental Disabilities, past Chair of the CCD, and her

work on our Board of Advisors, Steve Tingus, who is a senior former Bush advisor who

led important research and policy efforts, and also Mark Johnson from the Shepherd

Center. You guys are terrific friends and advocates. Many of you, most of you, I didn’t

even know a year ago, and I’m learning from each of you, and I continue to learn every

single day that I’m in this movement, and I’m sure there are many of you on this call that

I can learn immense amounts from.

I myself have a disability. I could not read or write until I was 12. For those who haven’t

met me in person, I’m 5 foot 10 ½, and I actually stopped growing when I was 12. So I

was a very tall illiterate person, but I’ve been very fortunate in my life to go on to be able

to work and serve the White House, more than 60 members of Congress, and a half

dozen different Prime Ministers in different capacities as an advisor, and I’ve also

worked in the non-profit sector before. But this is a brand new non-profit and we have a

lot of work to do. And I must say that right now, all the work is being done by an in-house

team, which is primarily college students and recent grads who are alums, some with

disabilities, some without disabilities. We do have a policy of ‘nothing about us without

us,’ and we want to be sure that on our Board, and on our staff, and in everything that

we do, that we are respectful of the need for people with disabilities to have self-

determination and independence, and that there is also a role for those of us who love

people with disabilities. I myself have two children with disabilities and this is important

for me in a family capacity as well.

We have a terrific pollster on our team, Meagan Buren, who also worked previously with

Frank Luntz and also with me at The Israel Project. Matthew Joice is our Press

Secretary. Daphna Oren helping on fundraising, we haven’t even really begun yet,

Tonya Koslo, who’s been with me for many, many years. But our Fellows, Hillary Steen,

and Kenny Kalman, and David Cohen, I want to give you a massive shout out for getting

the 255 folks on the call with us today. You’re doing an extraordinary job. We do look

forward to looking with Stanley Greenberg, Neil Newhouse, and Frank Luntz, top

pollsters. I will say that we are doing some in-house public opinion research to get

started because we have Meagan Buren who is such an expert. We have focus groups

coming up actually in about a week and half. There’ll be three focus groups, one of

people with disabilities who are graduates of high school or above, who are unemployed,

and under the age of 40. So we’re looking for people to participate in the focus group.

We’re looking for people who are support staff or family members for a second focus

group. And we’re doing a focus group of Capital Hill staff members who have disability

issues as one of their portfolio items. All of this is happening this month. Our other

consultants include Michael Shannon and Mark Moskowitz. I want to give a special

shout out to Dan Hazelwood because Targeted Creative made our business plan for us

in terms of the graphics and everything, and they do an extraordinary job, I’m very

grateful for that.

So let’s get to the challenge. And the real meat and potatoes is that there are 57 million

Americans with disabilities and approximately 70 percent of working-age Americans with

disabilities don’t have jobs. And that means that many of them live in poverty or near-

poverty, and this figure has not changed in the more than 20 years since the passage of

the Americans with Disabilities Act. And the disability community, we know that the

whole community can benefit from scientifically proven and unified messages. Now, I’m

on Slide 12 in the PowerPoint. If you don’t have the PowerPoint, it’s actually on our

website, www.respectabilityusa.org.

So I’m on page 13 now and please do look at page 13, it’s very important, it’s a chart.

And what you see on this chart is a series of circles, and the circles represent the

number of times that a given word was used at the national political conventions by

either the Democratic candidate, or the Republican candidate, or their surrogates

speaking at the national conventions. You can see that the words ‘Obama,’ and

‘Romney,’ and ‘jobs,’ and ‘families,’ and ‘business,’ and ‘government’ are very big words

that were used over, and over, and over again. But what you can also see on this chart

is that the word ‘disabilities’ or the word ‘disability’ was only used one time for every

25,000 words. That’s one time out of every 25,000 words. And what that means is that

our agenda, the agenda of Americans with disabilities—57 million Americans—was not

even on the platform at the national conventions. Some different advocacy groups talk

about how they’re upset that there are broken promises, that politicians promise them

something and deliver them nothing. I can tell you that we weren’t even promised

anything at all. We weren’t even on the agenda. So this is an incredibly important

statistic and this is something that we hope that this new organization, with your help,

will be able to change.

We want to be front and center as a power voter bloc here in the United States. If you

look at Slide 14, you’ll see there’s a couple of different groups that I’ve singled out. One

is La Raza because the Latino vote played such a very important role in this last

Presidential election, that Hispanics and Latinos now have an important immigration

debate that is underway because they showed their power at the voter bloc. Whether it’s

the Human Rights Campaign Fund that really talked about marriage equality issues, you

see the Supreme Court change. And you see with AIPAC, and The Israel Project, and

other pro-Israel groups, that there is a pro-Israel agenda in this country. But if you take

all the populations, you take all the Jews, all the Hispanics, and all of the lesbian, gay,

transgender, etcetera, Americans and you put them all together, that is fewer people

than the number of Americans with disabilities. We are larger group with 57 million

Americans.

And indeed, if you look at Slide 15 in a poll that we did with Stan Greenberg’s help right

before the election, we asked ‘do you, a family member, or a close friend have a

disability?’ And we found indeed that 51 percent of likely voters do have a disability

themselves or an immediate loved one who has a disability, 51 percent of voters. Now,

there is a misnomer or misperception that this is a Democratic bloc, that people with

disabilities are automatically voting Democratic. But what we see is that 52 percent are

Democratic and 44 percent of Republicans report either having a disability or a loved

one, and that the biggest chunk is actually in the Independents. So, people with

disabilities and their loved ones are actually, in fact, swing voters. And so, there is a real

incentive for politicians to pay a lot more attention on these issues and we need to raise

these issues with your help.

They’re split on whether the government is doing more— excuse me, enough for people

with disabilities. And I think in the future, when you look at Slide 17, we’ll change how we

ask the question, because it’s not that the government necessarily needs to do more, it’s

that the government needs to do the right thing. That sometimes what is being done is

not the most efficient way to get the outcomes that we’d like to see in terms of

independence and achieving the American Dream for people with disabilities.

I will say that on Slide 18 you see by a 22 to 1 margin, that’s 41 to 2 that American

voters say that they would be more likely to vote for a Congressional candidate who was

committed to making policies and programs that help people with disabilities a national

priority. That’s a very, very large margin. The unfortunate thing is that it’s not really on

the agenda that people are yet talking about and thinking about, and that’s what we, with

your help, want to change. There’s an extraordinary opportunity, we believe, that we

need to get it back as an issue that is seen as bipartisan. During the ADA it really was a

bipartisan issue. We want to move from a message of asking for “more money” to asking

more “problem-solving” to happen. And we want to really focus on the commonalities,

because whether you’re blind, or you are on the autism spectrum, or you happen to use

a wheelchair, or whatever your issue is, you want a job by and large, you want to have

independence, and you want to have a better future. So these are the sorts of things we

want to do is showcase the best practices and encourage a duplication of best practices

so that more people can have a better life.

So to do this, there are different sectors that we have identified. When I really studied

over the last year this incredible challenge of this intractability of this problem where

you’ve have this 70 percent not in the workplace that has been going on for literally more

than two decades, you have to ask yourself what can we do that is different than what

other incredibly wonderful people have tried in the past. And I think that part of it is

thinking about a ball. Think about a ball that you want to move down the table, or a

football that you want to move down the field. If you take one finger and you push it, and

you push it, and you push it, and you push it -- like you’re pushing only the government

solution -- you’re not going to get the outcome that you would get if you’re able to take

your hand and put all of your fingers around that ball, and pick it up, and throw it down

the field. So, I’m going to talk about these different partners because it’s key for us to

work with all the different sectors.

So, most important, of course, is that we want to support the amazing groups that are

out there, whether that’s NICL, or CCD, or NDLA, or the USBLN, or the other

organizations, we want to partner with and support the existing organizations that are

already out there to help them be more effective.

The second is, of course, elected officials. And I will say that there are certain elected

officials who we’re going to be working with particularly close with. Of course, Governor

Jack Markell, who’s been doing a great job with the National Governors Association. But

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Pete Sessions, and Congressman Brad Sherman, and

Senator Tom Harkin not only are extraordinary public servants, they also have

extraordinary staff. Whether it’s Andy Imparato, or Karen Summar, or Towner French, or

Lauren Wolman, or the other people that I get the privilege of working with, these are

extraordinary teams that really care about these issues and want to move the ball

forward.

The private sector has also extraordinary partners. Walgreens, I think, is a wonderful

model. For those of you who didn’t see it, it’s on our Facebook site. RespectAbility now

has a Facebook site. I hope that you’ll go there and that you will ‘like’ it. But we posted

this wonderful article from today from Bloomberg about the fact that Walgreens has

found that by doing good in terms of being moral, they’re actually much more profitable

in how they are able to operate as a company because they hire people with disabilities.

They find the turnover is far less, the loyalty to the job. And so they don’t have the same

kind of recruiting or training costs because they’re working with people with disabilities,

and it is a complete win-win for the financial bottom line.

We need to work with the media because they’re the lens through which the world sees

people with disabilities. We need to help them continue to have articles like the terrific

one that was today in Bloomberg about Walgreens and other companies. I want to

congratulate also Cathy McMorris Rodgers on her op-ed in The Hill today. We wanted

(0:23:26 inaudible) on opportunities for jobs for people with disabilities. These are

important things that they be in the news media.

Faith-based groups are also important partners. They are really a vital part of America.

We’ll encourage them to recruit volunteers for various disability advocacy causes,

including potentially being job coaches as this can be an extraordinary positive outcome.

And, of course, innovations. Now this slide, which is now Slide 26, was a little

controversial in the beginning because I will say that there are some who prefer a

medical model, and some prefer to just have disability pride. Here at our organization,

what we believe in is freedom of choice. We want to be sure that there is choice for

everybody and that it is meaningful real choice, and that people who want an assistive

device to help them communicate should be able to have the best quality, terrific access,

so that they can function in the workplace and in their private lives. We really want to see

people have choice.

We want to work with Hollywood and celebs. Murray Siegel will be a major partner for us

in that. He’s in California, has won many major awards, and has worked with me in the

past on getting celebs to speak out on issues. There’s a picture there on 27 of Goldie

Hawn. He and I worked together with her on issues and now will work to get celebrities

to really speak out on disability issues.

So, the first thing that I wanted to say is it’s important to recognize the different sectors

that we want to be working in across the board, and we want to work with the disability

groups who have expertise in those areas. Then we have particular tactics that we’re

going to engage in. I want to start by pointing out on Slide 28 that we are not a lobby

organization, and we are not a direct service organization, and we’re not going to

endorse candidates. If you want to see wonderful direct service organizations, you can

go to the Weinberg Foundation website and see all the terrific groups that they fund and

that Donn has been involved in. There are extraordinary groups doing direct service.

We’re doing something different, and that is really advocacy. And so, our first thing is

going to be making sure that all the disability players, the people who are champions on

this, have the right messages to use that we can win hearts and minds of the American

voters in a nonpartisan or a bipartisan way towards these issues. We’re going to be

doing media relations, whether it’s public service ads, it’s earned media, press relations,

press conferences, and we’re going to help the different disability groups and the elected

officials who are willing to speak out on these issues be heard.

When you look at Slide 31, you see we’re going to be doing a lot of training seminars.

And we’re very excited about that. Our very first training seminar is coming up on the

16th of July. All of you should be getting an invitation to that right as you complete this

call. So, you’ll be getting an invitation that’s going to be a free training seminar. It’s a

very small room unfortunately. I want to thank Congressman Pete Sessions providing

the space for us. But we’re very pleased. It’s going to be in the Rayburn Building. No

more than two people per organization, and we’re thrilled to be doing it. We’re going to

help on whatever you need to help understand how to have an impact, and we’re always

going to do it in a bipartisan way.

We’re going to be doing insider briefings, not only to help people who are advocates for

the disability community. We’re going to bring best practices to Capitol Hill and let

speakers speak about those best practices. You see Governor Jack Markell with Shelley

Cohen and myself from our Board. We did a major training seminar along with Jewish

Federations of North America and the Jewish Funders Network on inclusion with

Governor Markell, and we’re delighted with the work that he is doing and the NGA is

doing.

A very big part of our tactics is going to be getting to know the Presidential candidates

and making sure that they know our issues. I’ve done this in the past when I was at The

Israel Project and speaking with them on foreign policy issues. We’ve already started to

meet with the candidates. Already I’ve met and spoken with former Gov. Jeb Bush and

with Rep. Paul Ryan, but we expect to meet with people across the board throughout the

political parties and throughout the campaign season.

We want to be sure to recruit new leaders, looking at slide 35. There are some people

who, frankly, have had fairly unpleasant conversations sometimes within the disability

community who have a reason though to be on our side. Whether that’s David Axelrod,

or whether that’s Sarah Palin or that’s Rick Santorum, we want to try and bring more

people into the fold so that we can all row in the same direction. As I said, we want to put

all of our hands around that football and throw it down the field.

Political conventions and Presidential debates are going to be a big part of that. We do

plan to be at all of them to have a presence, to constantly make sure that hundreds of

reporters who are covering politics are understanding that voters with disabilities—again,

we’re talking 57 million Americans or 51 percent of likely voters who either have a

disability or a loved one with a disability—are not forgotten. Because this series of

Presidential debates, of which there were many, many in the primary and there were

three in the general election, there was not one question in a single debate that asked

about disability issues, and in fact, one of the major candidates did not even put a

position paper on their presidential campaign website on any issues for voters with

disabilities, which of course is obviously disappointing.

A big part of that will be kicking off some of these meetings with the Presidential

candidates around this meeting at the National Governors Association meeting, August

2 through 5, which is coming up in Wisconsin. I hope that many leaders of the disability

community will be flying out there to try and talk to the Governors. This is going to be

very exciting because the NGA is going to put out concrete ideas for how we can create

more jobs for people with disabilities. So this is a very, very important moment and we’re

going to need to have more resources frankly, more fiscal resources. So, for those of

you who are on the call, who are philanthropists, that is a call to action because we do

not have a lot of time with which to do some important things. Again, this is the training

on the 16th. Our speakers include Lanny Davis, Rick Dunham, Whit Ayres, and others.

Doc Sweitzer from our Board is an amazing speaker by the way; he’ll be one of the

speakers, and Congressman Pete Sessions. So it’s going to be terrific.

How can you help? Number one, we need to spread the word that we exist. We’re brand

brand new. This is our official launch. This is day one, ground zero. We need people to

know about us and we want people to join. So you can look for our business plan in full

on our website and get others to do the same. We’re going to do a transcript from this

call and we’re going to put that online along with an audio, so that if anybody missed this

call that they can later read about it or listen to it online. You can ‘like’ us on Facebook.

You can follow us on Twitter. Those addresses are right here on your PowerPoint, slide

39. You can come to training yourself and get the skills that you need to be very

effective. We’re looking for volunteers in our office. Right now we’re pretty flush with

terrific volunteers because this is summer and students aren’t in school. But the summer

ends and we’re going to need volunteers in the office. And we want people of all abilities

to serve on our Board of Directors. Now the Board of Directors has a fiscal responsibility

and a fundraising responsibility, and we’re hoping that people who are on this call will

say that they will step out and that they will join us.

We will ask also that people will donate now. It’s interesting, I see that in our numbers on

Slide 39 that even though ‘Donate now’ is listed fifth in line, it’s still got the number one,

and I think that’s because subliminally I know that it’s got to be job one. To get anything

done we’re going to need to have the resources that we need because, for example, our

website now, we need a real website that is blind-accessible. We need closed captioning

for all of our calls. We need all kinds of different things to make sure everything is 100

percent accessible and we need your help to do that. So, the way that you can donate is

actually by writing a check to ‘RespectAbility, a Project of the Autism Society,’ because

they are— really, they’re offering their offices and their auspices as our host. The

address is on the PowerPoint and on emails that you have gotten, and you can always

ask me questions. But Operator, we are ready for questions from everybody who’s on

the phone.

Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask question, please press

the ‘star’ key followed by the ‘1’ key on your touchtone phone now. Questions will be

taken in the order they are received. Again, that is ‘star 1’ to ask a question. Our first

question comes from Susan Picerno with Department of Labor.

Susan Picerno: Hi. This is Susan Picerno. I work for the Office of Disability

Employment Policy in the Department of Labor. And my question is I know you

mentioned having a discussion session for people under 40 who have disabilities, and I

just want to encourage you to, at some point, include the older group too, because I’ve

heard a lot of discussion lately about the next generation being the one that’s really

going to do something, and as somebody who’s 51, I was a little taken aback by that

because I thought that people my age had done quite a bit so far. And a lot of people

have acquired disabilities later in life, so we need to think of them too.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Absolutely. You’re completely right, Susan. We want to

look at the full spectrum. And indeed, the purpose of focus groups is to start to get into

how people’s hopes and dreams are and what their goals are, and then we’re going to

be drafting a survey instrument that will be for people with disabilities and their loved

ones across America, and we’re going to be— that’s all abilities. But all abilities who

want to work are going to be of focus to us, because that is what we really want to do is

focus on the population that wants to work and wants to be independent.

Susan Picerno: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Howard Caspan

who’s self-employed.

Howard Caspan: Hi. I am in Chicago. By trade I am a focus group

moderator, but my connection with the topic at hand is in the education system, special

needs children K through 12 and transition training as they’re moving into the work force.

And my question is whether your organization, if you see yourself as chipping in, so to

speak, with adults who are looking for work, or do you see yourself as also dealing with

children, education, and transition, and issues such as that?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: So, first of all, Mr. Caspan, thanks for your question.

Anybody who is not on ‘mute,’ if you can just hit the ‘mute’ button, that would be great

because we’re getting a little bit of feedback. I couldn’t completely hear your question but

it sounded like you were asking us if we were going to get into direct service. And we’re

not going to be in direct service business. We’re going to be in the business of moving

hearts and minds from one place to another. Our name is RespectAbility for a reason.

We want people to respect the abilities of people with disabilities, and we need to be

respected in a way that is comfortable with disabilities, which is why we’re going to be

doing so many focus groups and polls of people with disabilities to ask them what their

hopes and dreams are and how they would like to be seen and valued. We do not want

any preconceived notions that are imposed from the outside. We want to hear from the

individuals with disabilities and their loved ones what their hopes and dreams are and

then help them to achieve that. But we’re going to do that by partnering with people who

do direct service or partnering with the other disability groups that advocate for them, but

— yes?

Donn Weinberg: And I’m sorry, this is Donn Weinberg. I just wanted to add

in, in terms of your question Howard, which I interpreted to have something to do with

what about non-adults, people who are in school who have disabilities, how can we

connect that with our theme of employment, or in the case of minors, future employment.

And in fact, I think there are things that we can do and that we will look at. I’m aware,

through the Weinberg Foundation work, of a number of programs in various places in the

United States and Israel, for example, where there is work being done to prepare

children or students with disabilities for the working world. And so I think that’s very

relevant and that is something that I believe that we would be looking at, to identify some

of the best practices there and to encourage that more of it take place, whether through

the school systems or through other means.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: And this is work that we hope will be paid at minimum

wage and above work, just to be clear. Next question, Operator?

Operator: Our next question comes from Joel Simon with

Independent Agent.

Joel Simon: Hi, Jennifer. I know you’re not going to be lobbying, but are

you going to be setting up an affiliated 501(c)(4) or other PAC to try and, I guess,

leverage our ability to communicate with politicians? It’s not that I’m too cynical, it’s just

moderately cynical.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Not at this point. I mean, we have a really wonderful

advantage, which is that we have incredibly large numbers at our side, incredibly large

numbers. Fifty-seven million Americans is such a big number, and having a disability is

such a big part of people’s lives. I mean, it’s not like 57 million Americans happen to own

red pens. Nobody’s going to vote or think about public policy because of the color of

their pen. Having a disability is an important issue to somebody’s self-perception and

their ability to accomplish things in life, so I think that we will be able to have an

extraordinary impact just by mobilizing the potential of our sheer numbers. I do think that

having PACs and doing involvement in campaigns, as the Congressman who’s on the

line can attest, is an important thing for somebody to do, and that I’d be very happy to

cheer on anybody’s efforts in that regard. We’re taking on quite a lot right now and we

want to be sure that we’re good at what it is that we try to achieve. Next question,

Operator?

Operator: Our next question comes from Zara Baldwin with

Independent Agent.

Dara Baldwin: Hi. Yes, this is Zara Baldwin, and I am a disability advocate

for the community. And I want to say thank you for this call and thank you for the work

you’re doing. And Jennifer, we met. I used to work for the National Council on

Independent Living and I also spoke to both Kelly Buckland and Mark Johnson about

this questions I’m about to ask you. I have some serious concerns with the fact that

there’s a lack of diversity of cultural competency in most of the information I’m reading

and seeing, such as your website and the pictures you have. There are no pictures of

people of diverse backgrounds. There’s no mention of outreach to the community of

diversity and cultural competency. There’s no mention of outreach to the diverse

caucuses on the Hill, such as the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, the Asian-Pacific

Islander Caucus. And I just want to know how that’s going to be handled and if you have

any focus groups that will cover those issues. Because those issues, when you quote

your statistics, they’re usually double or triple for the communities of diverse

backgrounds.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: So Zara, that’s a very important question and I’m really

glad that you asked it. And I completely agree with you. In fact, when I made the

PowerPoint, I was very upset with myself that there weren’t more people of color in it

and that there isn’t more diversity yet on our Board. Our Board met yesterday. We have

10 positions according to our bylaw. So far we only have five of us. So, we have five

positions open and we are actively recruiting, and we would love to see people of

different backgrounds join us on our Board of Directors which has a fundraising

responsibility to it. We do want more people involved who are of color. Of course the

focus groups will, and the polling, will include people of diverse backgrounds, as will

each of the sectors. I actually don’t agree with your premise that the PowerPoint doesn’t

address that because, to me, when I think about the private sector, the faith sector, the

philanthropic sector— by the way, I don’t think I talked about the philanthropic sector but

that is an important sector, I do have a very firm expectation that we are going to reach

across the board to every kind of religious group, color, gender, every kind of everything.

Dara Baldwin: Yes, but I didn’t say that your information doesn’t say that,

I said there are pictures on there and no are no pictures of people of color, other than

people who are famous, but the people you— when you put pictures up at the top and

you have, it’s like, a group of people who, I guess, in your stock pictures here, your first

PowerPoint, there’s not one person of color in those pictures, and nowhere else on your

website or anywhere else. That’s what I said. I didn’t say about your language. So,

images mean things to people and people see that. And I’m glad to hear that you’re

going to do some outreach to have people on your Board, and let me know if there’s

anything I can do to help you.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: I appreciate that, Dara. Actually, I was recently a meeting

with many CEOs of disability organizations and we over with Wade Henderson who was

talking about civil rights work, and I thought it was interesting that all of the CEOs of the

disability organizations, by and large, were white men, and that we were inside a civil

rights organization where everybody was African American. And I said at that meeting

that I thought that there should be people with disabilities in the leadership inside the

civil rights African American community and there should be more African Americans

inside the leadership of the disability community. I am female and I think that counts as

one piece of diversity. Most of the pictures were with politicians who have tremendous

power. I think that the fact of the matter is that most politicians of power in America

happen to be White. But you do see that the President of the United States is in the

PowerPoint and he obviously is more diverse. And we look forward to more diversity.

We’re going to meeting with all of the Presidential candidates and I’m sure that Ben

Carson will be amongst them, and other people who join the race as time goes on.

Operator, next question, but Dara, I look forward to working with you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Janine Bertram with

Disability Rights Center.

Janine Bertram: Hi. It’s great that you’re doing this and I’m really excited

about the polls and the focus groups that you’ll be doing. And after the 1988 election,

because of the National Organization on Disability and the Harris poll, we found out that

people with disabilities really do vote disability issues. So you’ve got a long history of

data to take to politicians. And I was wondering about whether the results of the focus

groups would be available for various disability organizations on this call to use.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Absolutely. That is a wonderful question. The purpose is to

share it broadly throughout the community so that every dollar that we spend on

research can be force multiplied by giving it for free to all of the potential partners who

are in this field. That is the idea, is to have us all rowing in the same direction on solid

scientifically-based data.

Donn Weinberg: Which also reinforces to policymakers that there are

disability voters out there who care about these issues, which would wake up the

politicians and public servants to an even greater extent that these are issues that

should be paid attention to.

Janine Bertram: Well, I assure you that there are advocates on this call and

on your Board of Advisors that have been beating this drum for a long time, and it looks

like you’ve got a lot of quality marketing people, and political people, and funding

background that maybe we can get together and get it done now, so let’s do it.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Great. Thank you. Next call, Operator?

Operator: Our next question comes from Simone Mason with A

Different Perspective.

Simone Mason: Thank you very much. I’m actually very happy to be on the

call. I thank you for your work, it means a great deal to us as an advocacy organization

and service provider. And we’re moving from the role of advocacy around (0:45:40

indiscernible) disabilities for a 13 year period into service and education. So we’re

looking very much forward to utilizing that research. But one question that I have for you,

because of your political ties and some of the extensive experience of your Board

members, would you not consider some assistance to some of the smaller community-

based and faith-based organizations who typically do not have the expertise in-house for

grant-writing purposes, to associate and/or assist them in that effort in some way?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Unfortunately, we will be focusing on what we think we can

accomplish and do well. And if we are to spread ourselves to thin, I think we will fail at

everything. I think that what you raise is an important gap where there is need, but

unfortunately, we have a very big agenda that’s going to be very difficult for us to

accomplish, and in fact, we need to now raise our own money for this endeavor

ourselves. So, I’m sorry that my answer isn’t a different one, but I’d rather say ‘no’ than

set up a false expectation where we will disappoint.

Simone Mason: Thank you so much.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Thank you. Operator, next question?

Operator: Next question comes from Lisa Rochester with Institute for

— excuse me, with Institute for Community Inclusion.

Lisa Rochester: Hello, everyone. Hi, Jennifer, and I think we actually met in

Delaware at the Inclusive Employment Summit. And I’m calling from ICI, UMass Boston.

My question when I got in the queue a while ago was actually similar to, I think it was

Dara’s question about broad inclusivity, and I think you pretty much answered it in terms

of your partners, your focus groups, and your Board. If there’s anything that we can do to

be helpful in that, including whether it’s organizations like the National Urban League

and others, we would really be interested in helping, particularly because there are some

unique challenges but also unique assets that I think could be added to the conversation

and can help move the dial as well, particularly since many times different cultures,

whether it’s a language barrier or just a different culture in how people look at

disabilities, I think there’s a lot that we can learn, whether it’s through your focus groups

or with some of your partners. So, we stand ready to help out as well and

congratulations.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Lisa, that’s terrific. And let me just, again, reiterate, we

have more spaces open on our Board of Directors. And there is an expectation that

Board members will help raise money or will write checks, and we do want to make sure

that there are more Board members who have different— more diversity, including

disabilities themselves. And so if people on this call are interested in serving and are

ready to make that commitment, we’re very excited about that. If you know people who

fit the bill, we’d be very, very excited to know about it.

Operator: Thank you.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Next question, Operator?

Operator: Next question comes from Susan Rogers with National

Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse.

Susan Rogers: Hi. I want to say, again, thank you for having this call. My

question is, I know it’s a cross— I have two questions. One is I see that it’s a cross-

disability organization, and I just want to make sure that people with lived experienced of

mental health conditions are included and that particular disability is considered. And the

other question is the July 16th seminar, if you cannot attend personally, will that be

available, will the proceeds be available online or will you be filming it?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: It’s inside the Capitol and so we’re going to see what the

restrictions might be, but it does appear that we’ll be able to film it and put it as podcast

and put it on YouTube for free afterwards. I’ll also tell you that I’m going to, over time,

develop a training manual that will be available for free online for people on how to do

things like how to get press, how to do a TV interview, how to raise money. And I know

that we won’t be doing direct help how to raise money for people but we can provide

training materials on that sort of thing online for free for people, and that’s very much a

goal.

Susan Rogers: Thank you.

Donn Weinberg: And let me add— this is Donn Weinberg. Let me also add,

in terms of your specific question about people with mental, emotional, intellectual

disabilities, that that is definitely part of the disability universe that we’re trying to deal

with. I know that the Weinberg Foundation, for example, is working— has been funding

for a number of years a pilot project with Sheppard Pratt. They have eight locations

throughout the State of Maryland in which they’re trying to arrange customized

employment for people with severe mental illness, including severe schizophrenia, and

are learning a lot of things about that. Sometimes it’s successful, sometimes less so, but

we’re learning a lot about it. And we’re also funding some housing-related programs so

that as new apartment buildings get built there are units reserved for people with

disabilities in general, which can include people with intellectual, emotional, mental

disabilities. So, because we know that there are programs out there that have success

or potential for success, it’s something that RespectAbility U.S.A. would want to point out

to people and encourage replication of.

Susan Rogers: Thank you.

Donn Weinberg: Sure.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Next question, Operator?

Operator: Next question comes from Lori Golden with Ernest Young.

Ms. Golden, your line is open.

Lori Golden: Ah, thank you. I just had a quick question. The training

sounds really interesting, and then in the spirit, since you mentioned that it is limited, of

providing to everybody, are you going to tape it in some fashion, and put it on your site

and package it as a training piece that others can use?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Yes, absolutely we will. And by the way, when we do

things like that, we’re going to try and make sure that we transcribe everything, because

we believe that either we need to have captions or we need to have solutions so that

people who are deaf have access to the same resources as people who are not. So, we

really are excited to provide this for people.

Lori Golden: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from August Spector.

August Spector: Oh yes, hello. Can you hear me?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Yes.

August Spector: I do some coaching and counseling with people with

mental disabilities and they’re under SSI with the federal government, you know the

payment?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi:  Mm-hmm. Yes.

August Spector: It’s so limited, the SSI is so limited that they really can’t

work even though they really would like to work, because if they do work then some of

the SSI payments are subtracted, or they could be off SSI if they make too much money.

You understand the kind of problem. And I would hope that we would be looking into

something like that to see if they can change the SSI. The SSDI is a little better, but SSI

is a real problem.

Donn Weinberg: Right. And this is something we’re aware of, certainly at

the Weinberg Foundation, and RespectAbility will be learning more about that and trying

to take that into account. The problem is, I guess you can call them tin handcuffs in the

sense that once on the disability payments, there develops a fear to try employment

when that’s possible because of the fear of losing benefits. And even though there is a

period of time and a certain earnings limit that applies to people in those circumstances

in trying out employment, it’s still a very complicated and difficult situation. So I think we,

frankly, need to learn more about those details, and for example, organizations like

yours or people like you can certainly give us a greater sense of what those realities are

so that as we look into this and talk with policy makers to learn about it and share what

people are saying about it, perhaps they can begin to find ways to improve that situation.

Don’t know ahead of time if that’s the case, but we’re well aware that this is a major

challenge for people on SSDI, and of course, especially SSI.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Right. Operator, I think we have time for two more

questions. I want to thank those who are on the call. I want to especially thank our Board

of Directors and Advisors and our Chairman Donn Weinberg for being a part of this, and

all 255 of you who are joining us at this moment. But we have time for two more

questions.

Operator: Our next question comes from Suzie Hitchison with

Healthy People Succeed.

Suzie Hitchison: Thank you. I’m assuming that you can hear me.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Yes.

Suzie Hitchison: First of all, thank you. I really do appreciate and think what

you are striving to do is critically important to the field having been in it for a long, long

time as a service provider. I just want to clarify in looking at your information that you’re

talking about competitive independent employment, you’re not in any way talking about

any segregated settings, etcetera.

Donn Weinberg: Yes, that is correct.

Suzie Hitchison: Okay, because that’s, I think, critically important.

Donn Weinberg: Yeah. And in fact, I can assure you that that’s the case

because to the extent that I have any influence, our experience at the Weinberg

Foundation, our whole policy in disabilities and employment is to avoid the sheltered

workshop kind of process and to fund those programs that are getting people with

disabilities into the general employment market. So we are, already we start off sensitive

to that issue. We start off with the goal of getting people with disabilities into the general

employment market. And so I’m sure that as we pursue the things that we’ll be doing

advocacy-wise, and education and sensitization-wise, that’s what we’re going to be

encouraging.

Suzie Hitchison: Thank you. With some of the recent publicity, I think it’s

going to be critically important that that stay on the front burner.

Donn Weinberg: Absolutely.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Well, that is true very much; it’ll stay on the front burner.

But at the same time, we do have concerns that people who are in sheltered workshops,

should they suddenly close down, would need to have a transition for a smooth landing

into a better situation where they can earn a minimum wage or above and be in an

integrated environment. We do have a— I do personally have a deep concern that there

are 10 million Americans who are working age who have disabilities who have no work

at all, and that we need to be respectful of the difficulty that there is in creating such

jobs. I am especially happy to see organizations like Project SEARCH, which do

extraordinary work to help transition people from high school and into college or high

school into work environments. But even that extraordinary successful program was only

able to have 2,500 graduates this year, which is a very small number compared to the

very large numbers of people that we need to be helping. Senator Harkin and the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce has set a goal of trying to achieve a million new jobs for people

with disabilities between now and I believe it’s 2015. This is a very difficult thing to do

because it takes a lot of intensive help. It takes a real process of thinking through the

policy. There was an earlier question about thinking about education and stuff as we

raise a child into employment. You can’t just snap your fingers and create a job. There is

an extraordinary process of support that needs to happen with an expectation from birth

that people with disability have value, and that that value is important to America. That

they can make our country stronger, our companies richer, and our families better off if

their abilities are respected. So I think was that our last call? Or do we have one more

call?

Donn Weinberg: No, one more. We have one more question. Yeah.

Operator: Our final question comes from Marni Litvack with Jewish

Family Service.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Hi, Marni.

Marni Litvack: Hi. Good afternoon, hello. I was wondering if you could

share with the group a little bit about what your milestones are for year one a year two.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Well, we have a very specific written business plan which

is on our website, which has a whole section on performance metrics. And I encourage

you to look at our business plan and our very ambitious performance metrics. But of

course, we cannot achieve any of them without the resources to do the work. We need

to have paid staff, we need to have a website that functions for people who are blind,

and we need to have the ability to have videos with closed caption, and we need to the

ability to travel to places like the National Governors Association Conference. And a very

significant part of our budget is the public opinion research. We’re talking about a $½

million in public opinion research that we intend to share throughout the entire disability

community. But we can’t achieve any of it without the philanthropic support of people on

this call and others. And so, I do encourage you to look at the performance metrics and

to hold us accountable to them. The budget is very clear and you can see even the staff

salaries, and the overhead, and everything in our plan because the budget is there. We

want to be very transparent and very accountable. But at the end of the day, we can only

do what we afford.

I myself am working as a full-time volunteer on this effort; that means I’m not getting

paid. I myself have donated $50,000 along with my husband Victor and our family to

help kick this off. This is an incredibly important, important project. I also think it’s

important because some of you are used to thinking of the Weinberg Foundation as

having very large largess. And it is one of the most important foundations in the country

and it funds tremendous things in the disability space. But we are not a direct service

organization, we are an advocacy organization. And therefore, from the Weinberg

Foundation, what we have is we have the most amazing Chairman that any organization

could hope to have as our founding Chairman for a new organization focused on

disability issues. But legally they cannot fund us because we are outside of the direct

service that is within the legal mandate of the foundation. So, we have to go out there

and we have to hit the streets and ask for money. And I am willing to talk to folks about

that if people on this call can help me meet people. If people on this call want to host

fundraisers as lunches in your office on a weekday, I’ll come with a PowerPoint

presentation and meet your friends and your family and recruit others who I know. But

this is really the ground floor.

Many of you on this call, and I’ve looked at the list of 255 people, know me well from my

previous non-profit organization, which also started with nothing, as an idea with a

business plan. But they were familiar with working with me at the end of that process

where I’d been there for 10 years, where we had 80 people on staff, and when we had a

$10 million budget. So this is a budget where we hope to achieve raising $1.6 million,

and again, $500K of that will go to nothing but public opinion research. So we need your

help to achieve this, we’re really at the ground floor. And I want to also apologize that I

wish that I had the ability to answer every question and to be wonderfully responsive on

everything. Please be patient with us because, again, we’re a volunteer team working

out of the Autism Society right now which is giving us free office space, and this is a

startup. This is really the ground floor. This is our very first call. So, congratulations to

those of you who were willing to take a leap with us. Again, this is really the beginning.

We’re really very grateful to you that you’ve taken time out of your busy days to think

about these issues. Some of you have been involved in disability issues for decades.

And I look forward to learning from you and to really getting in the trenches with you. I

think this is going to be an extraordinary process.

And I want to thank our Chairman, and our Board, and our Board of Advisors, and all of

you, for being a part of this dream to help empower American’s with disabilities to

achieve the American Dream. Let me also remind you that the Autism Society is who

you write a check out to for RespectAbility.org is the organization. I want to thank

Congressman Brad Sherman especially for being on this call. It means a lot to me.

Congressman Sherman at my last non-profit that I co-founded, The Israel Project, was

the founder of our Board of Advisors and he helped me together with our various

chairmen over the years. We recruited three dozen different senators and congressmen

to our Board of Advisors. We had a rule, and the rule will now follow over to this new

organization that will be like Noah’s Ark. When we have a Democrat join, we’ll have a

Republican join, and we’ll go two by two so that we can really bring a bipartisan or a

post-partisan spirit to disability empowerment issues. Donn, did you want to say anything

else?

Donn Weinberg: No, I just wanted to thank everybody for participating.

Thank you, Jennifer, for talking to us, and explaining things, and answering many of

these questions. And I’m sure we’ll have future calls of this nature as we move along.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Yes, thank you. And please look for the invitation for the

July 16th training, and you’re all invited to take part, it’s in Washington D.C. Thank you

again.

Donn Weinberg: Thanks again, have a nice day.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s

teleconference. You may now disconnect.

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