Disability Pride Month Recap: 124 Volunteers, 36 Companies

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124 Volunteers Spent One Hour Making the Web More Accessible

Employee volunteering is one of the most powerful tools for engagement, culture, and community. But finding the right volunteer opportunities is hard. The kind that are easy to organize, scale across remote teams, and deliver real impact.

That's why Percent Pledge created Community Volunteer Events: fully guided, one-hour experiences that bring employees together for good. No prep. No planning. Just show up and make a difference.

This July, Percent Pledge partnered with Disability Belongs to host a virtual volunteer event for Disability Pride Month. 124 employees from 36 companies spent one hour conducting real accessibility assessments of websites and apps. They evaluated sites for color contrast, alt text, keyboard navigation, closed captions, font size, and more. They found barriers. They documented them. And they left knowing more about accessibility than when they arrived.

This is a good volunteer opportunity for remote employees. Very welcoming, and the instructions were clear and direct.
_{Alfonso A, Selene Finance}

Here is a look at what happened, and what your team can take away from it.

Inside the Disability Pride Month Volunteer Event

On July 15, 2026, 124 employees from 36 companies logged onto Zoom. They joined from 23 cities across the United States, Germany, and Canada.

The event opened with a Fact or Myth quiz on disability awareness. The chat filled with answers in seconds, just as it had for every previous event. Volunteers were already engaged before the work began.

One volunteer introduced herself as the Disabled DEI Director at her company. She was there for the same reason as everyone else. To learn, to do something useful, and to show up for the disability community.

Then came the activity.

Using a guided assessment framework, volunteers picked a website or app and evaluated it across a set of accessibility criteria: color contrast, alt text, zoom capability, closed captioning, keyboard navigation, clear headings, and more. They assessed everything from large national platforms to small local businesses. Common issues surfaced quickly. Missing alt text. Videos without captions. Insufficient color contrast. Fonts too small to read without zooming.

While I'm used to looking at websites through the lens of vestibular accessibility, this volunteer experience broadened my perspective and reminded me that accessibility means so much more. I learned a lot today, and I'll definitely keep it in mind as I create content for the company where I work.
_{Julia S, CareLumi}

In the middle of the session, a volunteer shared a tip in the chat: how to use a browser's developer tools to inspect whether an image has alt text. It is not always visible on the page itself. The chat filled with hearts. Others immediately applied the technique to their own assessments.

Another moment: volunteers learned that using camel case in hashtags, writing #DisabilityPrideMonth instead of #disabilitypridemonth, makes them easier for screen readers to parse. Small thing. Real impact.

It was not just volunteering. It was a skills session disguised as one.

Measurable Outcomes from One Hour of Virtual Volunteering

The results speak for themselves:

• 124 volunteers participated.
• 36 companies represented.
• 100+ websites and apps assessed for accessibility.
• 3 countries: United States, Germany, Canada.
• 23 cities represented.
• 90% of volunteers said they would recommend this event to a friend or colleague.

Every assessment is a data point. Every data point moves the web closer to being accessible for everyone.

Volunteer Voices: The Real Impact

Numbers tell one side of the story. The lived experience tells another. 90% of volunteers said they would recommend this event to a friend or colleague. Here is what they said:

Accessibility is something that's very important to me personally. This volunteer experience broadened my perspective and reminded me that accessibility means so much more than I realized. I learned a lot today, and I'll keep it in mind as I create content for the company where I work.
_{Julia S, CareLumi}

Thank you so much for the information and opportunity to learn.
_{Sharmila T, Battery Park City Authority}

It was good to learn about things that people with disabilities think about or need when accessing websites.
_{Nate T, Hunter Industries}

The most powerful thread of the event was not a single moment. It was the accumulation of small ones. A volunteer who lives with Ménière's disease, seeing her own experience reflected in the assessment criteria. A first-time attendee discovering that accessibility affects everyone. A chat full of "Fact" after "Fact" as the room absorbed what it means to navigate the web with a disability.

Save Your Spot: Upcoming Community Volunteer Events

Percent Pledge hosts free, one-hour virtual volunteer events every month, each tied to a cause holiday or heritage month. Here is what is coming up next:

• August 18 — Back-to-School Month
• September — Hispanic Heritage Month
• October — Breast Cancer Awareness Month
• November — Veterans Day

One hour. 100% virtual. No prep required. Free to join for employees, teams, and ERGs. Space is limited.

See All Upcoming Community Volunteer Events

Community Volunteer Events: Ready-Made Opportunities for HR Teams

Percent Pledge hosts Community Volunteer Events every month, each tied to a Heritage Month or Cause Holiday. Celebrating Disability Pride Month at work, or any cause month on the calendar, has never been easier.

Unlike traditional volunteer programs that require weeks of coordination, Community Volunteer Events are:

• Ready-made: Pre-designed and fully facilitated. Zero planning from your team.
• Virtual and scalable: Employees join from anywhere. Perfect for remote, hybrid, and globally distributed teams.
• Built for ERGs: Ideal for disability employee resource groups, Business Resource Groups, and Affinity Groups. A natural fit for inclusive volunteering and disability inclusion in the workplace.
• Consistent: Events run every six weeks, giving employees a regular cadence of opportunities to give back.

For HR, People, and CSR leaders, this model removes the biggest barrier to employee volunteering: the time it takes to plan.

Learn more about Community Volunteer Events

Why Companies Choose Percent Pledge

HR and CSR leaders consistently highlight the same benefits when they use Percent Pledge's corporate volunteering platform and Community Volunteer Events:

• Built-in facilitation and logistics. No vendor meetings. No extra work for your team.
• Easy scheduling that fits into one hour.
• Scalable participation across teams and time zones.
• Measurable outcomes ready to share with employees, ERGs, and leadership.
• Strong alignment with DEI initiatives, ERG programming, and cause holidays.

For People Ops, DEI, and CSR leaders, Community Volunteer Events deliver maximum engagement with minimal effort.

Learn how our platform simplifies corporate giving and volunteering

One Hour Can Build a More Accessible World

This Disability Pride Month event proved something simple: one hour matters.

For employees, it was a chance to learn, advocate, and build skills that outlast the event. For companies, it was a zero-lift volunteer opportunity tied directly to disability inclusion in the workplace. For the disability community, every assessment is a small step toward a web that works for everyone.

Want to bring this to your team?

• Get a live demo of Percent Pledge's volunteer management platform.
• Join the next Community Volunteer Event and experience the impact firsthand.

Get your team giving back. One hour can change a life.

What is Disability Pride Month?

Disability Pride Month is observed every July. It celebrates the identity, culture, history, and contributions of people with disabilities. It commemorates the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990. That legislation established federal protections against discrimination in employment, public services, transportation, and more.

Disability Pride Month is not about overcoming disability. It is about recognizing disability as a natural part of human diversity, and building a world designed to include everyone.

When is Disability Pride Month?

Disability Pride Month is every July. The month is anchored by July 26, the ADA anniversary. In 2026, that is the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. July 26 is also known as Disability Independence Day, a recognition of the rights and legal protections the ADA secured for more than 61 million Americans living with a disability.

ADA Month and Disability Pride Month are terms often used interchangeably. Both point to July as the time to recognize, advocate for, and celebrate the disability community.

How to Celebrate Disability Pride Month at Work

Disability Pride Month is one of the most meaningful cause holidays on the workplace calendar. For HR, DEI, and CSR leaders, it is a chance to advance disability inclusion in the workplace, support employees with disabilities, and take concrete action, not just raise awareness.

At this event, companies were able to:

• Give employees a skills-based volunteer opportunity tied directly to disability inclusion.
• Support Disability Belongs and the broader disability community through real, applied work.
• Build practical accessibility knowledge that employees could take back to their own teams.
• Deliver a remote-friendly, zero-lift experience for employees, disability employee resource groups, and ERGs.

Corporate giving and inclusive volunteering don't have to be abstract. Disability Pride Month is a moment to do something. This event showed how.

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