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Accessibility

Our Commitment to Accessibility

Through our ongoing commitment to educate ourselves in accessibility best practices by being in community with disabled people, we’ve learned that unhindered website navigation is not only a legal requirement, but also a human right. From the start of our website redesign project and as we move forward, accessibility continues to be our priority.

Implementing accessible website design is one way that we are putting this education into practice.

We commit to explore and act on the following:

  1. Meet the access needs of our team. We do this by providing flexible work schedules, PTO, and hybrid work environments.
  2. Better understand the role ableism plays in philanthropy and work to actively dismantle ableism within our industry.
  3. Enact event accessibility by learning how to practice accommodations, both online and in-person.
  4. Audit and address processes in our grant application cycle that may be too energy-intensive, hard to understand, or difficult to complete. We aim to find appropriate solutions and barrier reductions.
  5. Continue to understand and accommodate the access needs of those we are in partnership with and the broader Omaha Metropolitan community.
  6. Seek out and fund organizations and projects that follow the Disability Justice principle of leadership of the most impacted.

About This Website

We want our website to be accessible to as many people as possible.

To increase accessibility, we prioritized accessible design choices, created image captions to aid in comprehension and visual accessibility of our shared photos, and hired an accessibility consultant to audit and enhance various website components. We also prioritized writing in clear language and committed to language justice by offering the website in Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, and English languages. Translations were created by World Speaks Omaha, not automated third party translator widgets to ensure better accuracy.

This website meets Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.1 AAA guidelines. Google Chrome’s Siteimprove Accessibility Checker automated testing was used. Additionally, we hired a user tester with disabilities to test the functionality of our website, using screen reader technology and keyboard navigation, and implemented their feedback.

The Weitz Family Foundation website is designed to be compatible with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and the last two versions of Safari (iOS and OSX). Minor differences occur across browsers.

In line with our growing commitment to accessibility, we plan to follow WCAG for updates to its guidelines and change our website accordingly.

Image Captions

The Weitz Family Foundation website includes image captions with photos to assist those with access needs related to vision and comprehension. We did our best not to assume gender or racial identity. If you are in one of our photos and would like to self-identify, please email Hello@WeitzFamilyFoundation.org, and we will gladly update the image description.

Youth Photos

If you are a parent or legal guardian of a child in one of our photos and would like the photo removed from the website, please email Hello@WeitzFamilyFoundation.org. Once we receive your email, our team will remove the photo as soon as possible.

Feedback

We are committed to improving accessibility. If any part of our website is difficult to navigate or hard to understand, please contact our team by emailing Hello@WeitzFamilyFoundation.org. Please note our staff does not include an IT support person or a website developer. Responses may take time depending on our contractor’s availability. We are not experts on assistive technology or website accessibility, and we are committed to learning more as a response to your feedback. We hope to get back to you within 7 business days with a plan of action.

Website Design

The content and design of the Weitz Family Foundation website is meant to be legible, understandable, and not fatiguing, overwhelming, or distracting. Our illustrations also depict various disabilities to advance representational equity. The website design is meant to complement the Weitz Family Foundation logo and brand.

Weitz Family Foundation Logo Description

The elements of the logo, designed by E Creative, represent being part of a greater community and the support offered through funding unique organizations and initiatives.

The Weitz Family logo has four waves of different colors:

  • First, a dark blue wave in the very back representing responsibility, honesty, and loyalty.
  • Next, an aqua wave reflecting open communication, focus, and an uplifting nature.
  • Then, an orange wave reflecting optimism, warmth, and positivity.
  • Finally, the teal wave signifies clarity, trustworthiness, and reliability.

The use of open space above and below the waves represents equality, wholeness, and fairness.

“Weitz” stands out with a bold weight beneath the waves to represent stability while the use of the lower-cased font reflects the organization’s humility. The “Family Foundation” is below “Weitz” and is in a lighter, lower-case front to reflect openness and transparency.

We offer this description to offer visual and creative insight into our artistic intent, which is sometimes a hidden form of labor, but one we honor and appreciate through our commitments to the arts community.

Language Access

We did our best to write short sections to help with comprehension and legibility. We also write in plainer language, which means writing in a way that is easier to understand and also easier to translate. Our translation was provided by real people rather than automated services to better create more equitable language accuracy.

We offer accurate open captions on videos as well as transcriptions for videos.

We will continue to work on the accessibility of published resources and documents.

We know that language access comes in many forms and that providing these barrier reductions fulfills our human right of communication across all access needs, backgrounds, and cultures.

Resources on Web Accessibility

Digital Land Acknowledgement

Internet usage impacts the environment through the output of greenhouse gasses. We know that climate chaos often impacts poor, disabled, and/or BIPOC communities the most, often in hidden ways. Our website server is on land that used to belong to the Munsee Lenape people and was taken from them by force. In acknowledgement of the environmental impact associated with our website, our team is reaching out to tribal leaders to determine meaningful ways our organization can contribute to offset our impact.

Special Thanks

We appreciate those who have modeled innovative digital accommodations and inspired our practices, such as Kinetic Light and Carolyn Lazard, who practice image captions. We are also grateful to learn from disability practitioners in the #A11y community and from those who steward digital spaces in accessible ways. We are excited to continue learning from many wonderful practitioners in this sector.

Shelby Seier, Founder of All Kinds Accessibility Consulting, is instrumental in the accessibility of this website. Thank you, Shelby, for continuing to share your practice in creating content that is accessible, navigable, and understandable.

Florian Beijers provided the keyboard and screen reader testing. Thank you, Florian, for your time, talent, and knowledge, and help in making this website more accessible.

World Speaks Omaha provided the language translation of this website. Thank you to the team at World Speaks Omaha for your dedication to creating a thriving, inclusive, and culturally conscious community.

Our Access Statement was last updated on 12/22/2022.