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

Donn Weinberg:

Well, thank you. Im Donn Weinberg and Im 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. Its 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 thats a good indication of the spirit behind what were 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 its 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 its in their own self-interest to do so. We tend to believe that when employers do things purely for charity its 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 theyre 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, thats why were launching this. And I wanted to turn this over for a second to a few other people to make some comments, and then well ultimately return to Jennifer Mizrahi, who is our President, and shell be talking a little more detailed. So, first Id 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 Ill 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. Its been a terrific experience and were moving quickly in the right direction. And I also want to say Im 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 were 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 its an issue that unites us. Its about jobs, its about opportunities, its 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, thats what we do. So, Id like to thank everybody for taking this time. I hope youll join us. I think this is a winning endeavor. In fact, I know its a winning endeavor, and I think its just the opportunity we want to make a difference. And so lets just join in and lets 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 Ive come to the table from a personal perspective of having had a child with disabilities, as Im 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 its really a wonderful opportunity and Im 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, its good to be with you. Glad to be here for

RespectAbilitys 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, Ive known her for 16 years and Ive 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 its just considered expected that, to the full extent possible, those with disabilities are

motivated, capable, proud, self-supporting, and contributing citizens. And Ill encourage everyone on this call to be involved with RespectAbility, whether its 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. Id like to thank also Louis Zweig, who is a brand new Board member who is from Texas. Hes a philanthropist and a marketing leader. Id like to thank from our Board of Advisors Kelly Buckland, who is of course the Executive Director of NCIL, Steve Eidelman, whos 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 didnt

even know a year ago, and Im learning from each of you, and I continue to learn every single day that Im in this movement, and Im 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 havent met me in person, Im 5 foot 10 , and I actually stopped growing when I was 12. So I was a very tall illiterate person, but Ive 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 Ive 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 selfdetermination 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 havent even really begun yet, Tonya Koslo, whos 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. Youre 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. Therell 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 were looking for people to participate in the focus group. Were looking for people who are support staff or family members for a second focus group. And were 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, Im very grateful for that. So lets 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 dont have jobs. And that means that many of them live in poverty or nearpoverty, 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, Im on Slide 12 in the PowerPoint. If you dont have the PowerPoint, its actually on our website, www.respectabilityusa.org. So Im on page 13 now and please do look at page 13, its very important, its 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. Thats one time out of every 25,000 words. And what that means is that our agenda, the agenda of Americans with disabilities57 million Americanswas not even on the platform at the national conventions. Some different advocacy groups talk about how theyre upset that there are broken promises, that politicians promise them something and deliver them nothing. I can tell you that we werent even promised anything at all. We werent 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, youll see theres a couple of different groups that Ive 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 its 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 Greenbergs 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. Theyre 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, well change how we ask the question, because its not that the government necessarily needs to do more, its 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 wed like to see in term s 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, thats 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. Thats a very, very large margin. The unfortunate thing is that its not really on the agenda that people are yet talking about and thinking about, and thats what we, with your help, want to change. Theres 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 youre 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 youve 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 youre pushing only the government solution -- youre not going to get the outcome that you would get if youre 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, Im going to talk about these different partners because its 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 thats 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 were going to be working with particularly close with. Of course, Governor Jack Markell, whos 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 its 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 didnt see it, its on our Facebook site. RespectAbility now has a Facebook site. I hope that youll 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, theyre 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 dont have the same kind of recruiting or training costs because theyre 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 theyre 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. Well 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. Hes in California, has won many major awards, and has worked with me in the past on getting celebs to speak out on issues. Theres 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 its 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 were 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 were 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. Were 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. Were going to be doing media relations, whether its public service ads, its earned media, press relations, press conferences, and were 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 were going to be doing a lot of training seminars. And were 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, youll be getting an invitation thats going to be a free training seminar. Its a very small room unfortunately. I want to thank Congressman Pete Sessions providing the space for us. But were very pleased. Its going to be in the Rayburn Building. No

more than two people per organization, and were thrilled to be doing it. Were going to help on whatever you need to help understand how to have an impact, and were always going to do it in a bipartisan way. Were going to be doing insider briefings, not only to help people who are advocates for the disability community. Were 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 were 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. Ive done this in the past when I was at The Israel Project and speaking with them on foreign policy issues. Weve already started to meet with the candidates. Already Ive 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 thats David Axelrod, or whether thats Sarah Palin or thats 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 disabilitiesagain, were talking 57 million Americans or 51 percent of likely voters who either have a

disability or a loved one with a disabilityare 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 were 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; hell be one of the speakers, and Congressman Pete Sessions. So its going to be terrific. How can you help? Number one, we need to spread the word that we exist. Were 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. Were going to do a transcript from this call and were 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. Were looking for volunteers in our office. Right now were pretty flush with terrific volunteers because this is summer and students arent in school. But the summer ends and were 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 were 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. Its interesting, I see that in our numbers on Slide 39 that even though Donate now is listed fifth in line, its still got the number one, and I think thats because subliminally I know that its got to be job one. To get anything done were 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, theyre 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 whos 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 Ive heard a lot of discussion lately about the next generation being the one thats really going to do something, and as somebody whos 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. Youre 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 peoples hopes and dreams are and what their goals are, and then were going to be drafting a survey instrument that will be for people with disabilities and their loved ones across America, and were going to be thats 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: whos self-employed.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Howard Caspan

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 theyre 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 were getting a little bit of feedback. I couldnt completely hear your question but it sounded like you were asking us if we were going to get into direct service. And were not going to be in direct service business. Were 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 were 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 were 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 Im 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. Im 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 thats 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: Independent Agent.

Our

next

question

comes

from

Joel

Simon

with

Joel Simon:

Hi, Jennifer. I know youre 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? Its not that Im too cynical, its 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 peoples lives. I mean, its not like 57 million Americans happen to own red pens. Nobodys going to vote or think about public policy because of the color of their pen. Having a disability is an important issue to somebodys 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 whos on the line can attest, is an important thing for somebody to do, and that Id be very happy to cheer on anybodys efforts in that regard. Were taking on quite a lot right now and we

want to be sure that were good at what it is that we try to achieve. Next question, Operator?

Operator: Independent Agent.

Our next question comes from Zara Baldwin with

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 youre 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 Im about to ask you. I have some serious concerns with the fact that theres a lack of diversity of cultural competency in most of the information Im reading and seeing, such as your website and the pictures you have. There are no pictures of people of diverse backgrounds. Theres no mention of outreach to the community of diversity and cultural competency. Theres 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 thats going to be handled and if you have any focus groups that will cover those issues. Because those issues, when you quote your statistics, theyre usually double or triple for the communities of diverse backgrounds.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi:

So Zara, thats a very important question and Im 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 werent more people of color in it and that there isnt 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 dont agree with your premise that the PowerPoint doesnt address that because, to me, when I think about the private sector, the faith sector, the philanthropic sector by the way, I dont 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 didnt say that your information doesnt 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, its like, a group of people who, I guess, in your stock pictures here, your first PowerPoint, theres not one person of color in those pictures, and nowhere else on your website or anywhere else. Thats what I said. I didnt say about your language. So, images mean things to people and people see that. And Im glad to hear that youre going to do some outreach to have people on your Board, and let me know if theres 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. Were going to meeting with all of the Presidential candidates and Im 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: Disability Rights Center.

Our next question comes from Janine Bertram with

Janine Bertram:

Hi. Its great that youre doing this and Im really excited

about the polls and the focus groups that youll 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 youve 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 youve 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 lets do it.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi:

Great. Thank you. Next call, Operator?

Operator: Different Perspective.

Our next question comes from Simone Mason with A

Simone Mason:

Thank you very much. Im 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 were moving from the role of advocacy around (0:45:40 indiscernible) disabilities for a 13 year period into service and education. So were 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 communitybased 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 thats 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, Im sorry that my answer isnt a different one, but Id 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 Im calling from ICI, UMass Boston. My question when I got in the queue a while ago was actually similar to, I think it was Daras question about broad inclusivity, and I think you pretty much answered it in terms of your partners, your focus groups, and your Board. If theres anything that we can do to be helpful in that, including whether its 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 its a language barrier or just a different culture in how people look at disabilities, I think theres a lot that we can learn, whether its 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, thats 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, were very excited about that. If you know people who fit the bill, wed 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 its a cross I have two questions. One is I see that its a crossdisability 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:

Its inside the Capitol and so were going to see what the

restrictions might be, but it does appear that well be able to film it and put it as podcast and put it on YouTube for free afterwards. Ill also tell you that Im going to, over tim e, 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 wont 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 thats 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 were 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 theyre trying to arrange customized employment for people with severe mental illness, including severe schizophrenia, and are learning a lot of things about that. Sometimes its successful, sometimes less so, but were learning a lot about it. And were 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, its 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, were 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 theyre under SSI with the federal government, you know the payment?

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi:

Mm-hmm. Yes. Its so limited, the SSI is so limited that they really cant

August Spector:

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 were 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 thats 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, its 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.

Dont know ahead of time if thats the case, but were 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: Healthy People Succeed.

Our next question comes from Suzie Hitchison with

Suzie Hitchison:

Thank you. Im 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 youre talking about competitive independent employment, youre not in any way talking about any segregated settings, etcetera.

Donn Weinberg:

Yes, that is correct.

Suzie Hitchison:

Okay, because thats, I think, critically important.

Donn Weinberg:

Yeah. And in fact, I can assure you that thats 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 Im sure that as we pursue the things that well be doing advocacy-wise, and education and sensitization-wise, thats what were going to be encouraging.

Suzie Hitchison:

Thank you. With some of the recent publicity, I think its

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

Donn Weinberg:

Absolutely.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi:

Well, that is true very much; itll 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 its 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 cant 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: Family Service.

Our final question comes from Marni Litvack with Jewish

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. Were talking about a $ million in public opinion research that we intend to share throughout the entire disability community. But we cant 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 Im 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 its 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, Ill 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 Ive 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 Id 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, were 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, were 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. Were really very grateful to you that youve 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 Americans 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 Noahs Ark. When we have a Democrat join, well have a Republican join, and well 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 Im sure well 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 youre all invited to take part, its in Washington D.C. Thank you again.

Donn Weinberg:

Thanks again, have a nice day.

Operator:

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes todays

teleconference. You may now disconnect.

####