I got an e-mail the other day from Rob Crawford about an effort to generate The Global Network for Entrepreneurs with Disabilities. 
There’s a website going up for that next month, and in the meantime, if you’re interested, there’s a related blog at the Life Development Institute, which is where I found the chart at the right here.
The title over that chart, in context, is: is this the best we can do? The bar chart compared the U.S. unemployment rate for disabled people, in blue, to the rate for non-disabled, in red. I assume you agree it tells the story pretty well. And it asks a good question.
Is entrepreneurship the answer? I’d assume it’s going to work for some people and not others–exactly as it does for the rest of the world, disabled or not–depending on the person, the situation, the business possibilities, the resources, and other factors. Why not?
Entrepreneurship is about doing something you like to do that fills a need or satisfies a want that other people have and makes money. So why not? And the idea of collecting information and resources for people seems like a win-win for sure.
Rob asked me if I knew of specific resources for entrepreneurs with disabilities, and I don’t. I did do a quick Google search, though, and that was encouraging.
And maybe you know of something, have a suggestion or want to help. You can find contact information at the Life Development Institute. And, a word of caution here: I received an e-mail, I went to the website; I don’t have any advance knowledge. It just seemed to me to be a good idea, so I decided to pass it on.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
