Welcome to www.disabilitychamber.org

Home of the National Chamber of Commerce
for Persons with Disabilities, Inc.

The Chamber’s mission is to help persons with disabilities and their direct caregivers to form and grow businesses.

Statistics of the Month:

People with disabilities have a combined income of more than $1 trillion with $220 billion in discretionary income. In comparison, the teen market controls $140 billion.

View more statistics

New Additions:

The Chamber recently approved a new mission statement, a vision statement, and a strategic plan. Please take a look and e-mail us your comments. Also, please let us know if you are interested in helping the Chamber achieve its goals.
Planned DC Marketplace and Newsletter
Self - Employment Opportunities
Available Webcasts on Self-Employment
Griffin-Hammis, LLC, an organization internationally renowned for its expertise in self employment and business ownership for individuals with significant disabilities, has joined the Chamber as a Support Organization member.
Download our brochure (PDF, 404k)

There are several reasons why the Chamber is needed:

Individuals with disabilities have historically had a high unemployment rate. The Chamber will make the formation and growth of Disability Businesses less of a challenge, so that persons with disabilities have increased opportunities to become self employed.
Currently, our Chamber is the only organization that provides a national network of Disability Businesses. Yet, there is a growing demand from the government and the business community to purchase from Disability Businesses. Our Chamber will provide a national list of Disability Businesses that will satisfy this demand.
Starting and growing a business takes a significant amount of time and energy. Persons with disabilities spend a significant amount of time and energy overcoming their disabilities. Direct caregivers spend a significant amount of time and energy helping persons with disabilities. The Chamber will help reduce the time and energy needed to form and grow a business through its resources and the internal and external marketing of its Members.

This site was designed to be a marketplace for networking and locating resources that can be used to form and grow Disability Businesses. Please take a little time to navigate this website and see what is available. As with the operation of a business, this site will change regularly.

For example, we plan to add the following to this website:

A list of Disability Businesses searchable by business type and by disability. This list will include information on those businesses and links to their websites.
Business and disability resources, including information provided by business experts and links to established business and disability organizations. These links will include information on obtaining government grants and other sources of capital.
Forums where Members can discuss business and disability issues
Blogs where experts can discuss items of interest with Members
Webinars (web-based seminars) that focus on various topics affecting Disability Businesses
A periodic newsletter that will focus on specific topics in the formation and operation of a Disability Business. Topics are expected to include corporate, tax, and labor legal advice, accounting advice, financing advice, management advice, marketing advice, and disability advice.

Please check back regularly to see the changes to this site.

We welcome suggestions as to improvements to this site, as well as to other programs and services you would like to see us offer. If you have any suggestions, please contact us.

Very Truly Yours,

Peter A. Schoemann

Peter A. Schoemann, Chairman

P.S. The Chamber thanks the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities, Inc., Broad and Cassel, and Elizabeth Parker, Keith Casebonne and Dawn Rix in particular, for doing a great job designing this website. We could not have come this far this fast without them.