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About the Program
Created in 2015, the Arts Learning Community for Universal Access is a collaborative program between the City of Raleigh Arts Commission and the United Arts Council of Wake County that brings together like-minded arts and cultural administrators who want to improve how inclusive their organizations are of the Deaf community and people living with disabilities. Annual year-long cohorts run from July through June.
Program Components
Once accepted into the program, each Learning Community cohort:
- Attends the Learning Community’s July kick-off meeting.
- Attends the full Leadership Exchange in Arts & Disability (LEAD®) Conference.
- Meets every month in facilitated sessions to share lessons learned, discuss issues and achievements in their accessibility work, and explore accessibility topics of mutual interest to the group (attendance at nine meetings required)
- Identifies individual, organizational goals/projects to accomplish during the year to increase accessibility for people with disabilities
- Shares what they have learned through a group presentation or project for the arts community at large
Join the Learning Community
Each year representatives of Raleigh and Wake County organizations are selected to participate in this program (maximum 2 representatives/organization) through an application process.
To participate in this program, applicants must be located within Wake County* and be a nonprofit exempt from federal and state income tax as either:
- A charitable organization with 501(c)(3) designation by the Internal Revenue Service with established arts programming or
- A unit of municipal government.
*Interested organizations outside Wake County should contact S.A. Corrin at sarah.corrin@raleighnc.gov to discuss their situation.
How to Apply
The 2025-2026 application will open in Spring 2025.
Raleigh Convention Center Accessibility Overview Video
For their group project, a cohort of the 2021-2022 Learning Community created a “Welcome to Raleigh” video to enhance the Raleigh Convention Center’s accessibility information. This video provides an overview of the accessibility features at the Raleigh Convention Center, including drop-off areas, entrances, accessible restrooms, elevators and escalators, sensory kits, and rooms within the facility. The goal of the video was to provide visitors with a pre-visit view of the facility while answering many frequently asked questions. A different version of the video was recorded to provide more specific information to attendees of the LEAD® Conference in August 2022.
View the Raleigh Convention Center Accessibility Overview video
