Lorinda Gonzalez-Santana says she’s been an entrepreneur since she was 19 years old. “I kind of had a little editing side hustle…when I was in college. So, it started there,” she recalls. When her foray into a 9-to-5 job didn’t work, she dove back into her own business and now helms Remy’s Consulting, where she helps non-profits access grant funding. “It was a way of really being able to…manage my personal life and also be able to be successful and be independent.”
Gonzalez-Santana, who uses a wheelchair, is among more than one in four—or 70 million— adults in the U.S. who reported having a disability, according to the CDC. However, many entrepreneurs with disabilities and experts in the field say finding resources to support their small business dreams is challenging.
The National Disability Institute
Through its Small Business Hub, the nonprofit National Disability Institute (NDI) has spent the past several years working with federal and state government agencies and other organizations to make their educational services more accessible for entrepreneurs with disabilities. NDI provides entrepreneurial support services including a streaming TV channel, webinars, podcasts, and in-person gatherings. Beyond NDI, two other business incubators specialize in this sector; Synergies Work an 2Gether International.
The need is great. According to the National Disability Institute, one in four people with disabilities live in poverty and experience barriers to wage-based employment. An average of just 22.5 percent of people with disabilities were employed in 2023— an all-time high, according to the Center for American Progress, yet still a small portion of the population. Without wage-based employment, many of these individuals experience financial instability, which compromises their ability to live independently.
Entrepreneurship can be a viable alternative—and it often is. People with disabilities start businesses at a higher rate than the general population; 9.5% of people with disabilities are entrepreneurs, compared with 6.1% of Americans without disabilities, according to the Small Business Administration.
Primed for entrepreneurship
“Many of the entrepreneurs we work with, which has been way over 1,000 in the last four years, … have said… this world is just not set up for me,” says Nikki Powis, NDI’s director of small business programs. She observes that many of the entrepreneurs the NDI has worked with have faced difficulty earning wage-based employment. “A lot of folks have experienced… assumptions about their abilities and skills, and so have sort of given up trying to get a job and decided they’re going to create their own.”
Gonzalez-Santana says she was building entrepreneurial skills, such as creativity, problem-solving, and innovation, navigating her daily life. “I’ve been employing caretakers for 15 years. So, when you put that in perspective, that’s an extremely long amount of experience in the human resources aspect, right? It’s hiring; it’s training; it’s firing; it’s all those things,” she says. “I can’t get out of bed unless someone gets me out. So, imagine all the logistics that go into that; making sure there’s somebody here to do it. Having a backup plan. All those types of things that we just naturally have to adapt to in order to live our lives.”
Being her own boss and controlling her own schedule is also conducive to Gonzalez-Santana’s lifestyle needs. “[With] my body, I have moments where I’m feeling really great. I have moments when I’m not. That kind of comes and goes. So, the idea of working flexible schedules is that… I’m able to manage it based on… when I feel the best,” she says.
Powis says entrepreneurs with disabilities face the same challenges as any other person starting a business and that they need a support system. Just as a tech genius may need to hire marketing support, or a creative may need to seek out a financial whiz, entrepreneurs with disabilities may need employees, contractors, or parents/family members to assist with various aspects of their businesses. NDI works one-on-one with entrepreneurs to identify their need areas and connect them with resources via an integrated resource team model.
Gonzalez-Santana channeled her dream of starting a business into classes and mentorship with SCORE, which bills itself as the country’s largest network of volunteer expert business mentors. From her SCORE mentor, she says she learned about the vitality and viability of entrepreneurship, as well as tactical information for daily business operations.
Government and corporate support
Entrepreneurs with disabilities may hesitate to start their own businesses out of concerns that doing so will cause them to lose disability benefits and/or Medicaid; however, it may be possible to maintain benefits—and many entrepreneurs have successfully done so.
Existing entrepreneurs may in turn hesitate to disclose their disability because they’ve experienced ableism and worry that sharing will lead to other businesses or customers not wanting to do business with them, Powis says.
However, disclosing a disability may lead to additional opportunities. Individuals must identify their disability to tap into NDI resources, and the institute encourages people to share. Historically, businesses that receive Disability-Owned Business Enterprise (DOBE) certification, which indicates a business is at least 51% owned, managed, and controlled by a person with a disability, have received priority federal contracting.
These certifications also assist with private sector contracts. Disability IN helps certify businesses and links them to organizations hoping to diversify their supply chains. “There are doors that open and funding that’s available if you disclose you have a disability. But it’s ultimately… up to the person and what their experience has been and whether they want to do that or not,” Powis says.
Working within the system
Government resources are available for the tenacious, Gonzalez-Santana says. She tapped into the vocational rehabilitation services department in her home state of Florida, which helped with vehicle modifications and desk equipment to start her business, as well as funding her master’s degree.
However, she found the department wasn’t open to or encouraging of entrepreneurship; it took resourcefulness on her part to navigate the system. “There’s definitely some education that’s needed,” she says. “However [if] we look at the positive side, [vocational rehabilitation departments have] huge budgets that they can spend in order to get you the things that you need.”
Powis says the federal and state agencies NDI has worked with to date have been open to identifying where they could do more to connect with entrepreneurs with disabilities and/or make their existing resources more accessible. “They need to be at the table. They need to be part of the conversations. They need to be willing and open to hearing the voices of the entrepreneurs and business owners with disabilities and hearing where there needs to be some change,” she says.
Regardless of the sphere, when it comes to supporting entrepreneurs with disabilities Gonzalez-Santana says communication is key. “Most people with disabilities… they know what works best for them, and if you’re given the opportunity to discuss that openly and freely, without judgment or fear …and both sides are just listening to each other, I think that would really just make everything flow,” she says.
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