Centering Accessibility in Nonprofit Marketing with Dominique Dunlop
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In This Episode
Ensuring your digital marketing is accessible for all audiences may seem like a daunting task, but today’s guest, Dominique Dunlop, makes it feel not only doable but meaningful.
Dominique is the founder of A11y Impact and a champion for digital inclusion in the nonprofit world. With her background in inclusive education and lived experience with ADHD, she brings both heart and strategy to this conversation. We talk about how trauma-informed storytelling, nonprofit communication ethics, and accessibility are all connected, and why accessibility is more than just a box to check. It’s a way to truly connect.
If you’ve ever wondered where to begin, Dominique offers practical, realistic steps you can take today to make your content more inclusive, whether it’s your website, social media, or email. We also talk about how accessible storytelling can build trust, grow your reach, and strengthen your mission. This episode is for anyone who wants their nonprofit marketing strategies to reflect care, clarity, and impact.
About Dominique Dunlop
Dominique Dunlop is the founder of A11y Impact and a champion for nonprofit digital inclusion and accessibility. With a background in inclusive education and lived experience, she works to make the web a place where everyone belongs. Dominique believes that digital inclusion is not an afterthought; it is the foundation.
Connect with Dominique Dunlop
Transcripts
Maria Bryan: I am so happy to welcome Dominique Dunlop, founder of A11y Impact and a champion for nonprofit digital inclusion and accessibility. Dominique has a background as an inclusive education teacher, and she brings both professional and lived experiences to the work of making the web a place where everyone belongs.
Dominique believes that digital inclusion isn't an afterthought, it's the foundation. I am incredibly excited to dig into her insights and what it means to create nonprofit content and platforms that are accessible to all. This is so important. I'm thrilled that we're talking about it. Welcome, Dominique.
Dominique Dunlop: I am so excited to be here. Thanks for the invite, Maria.
Maria Bryan: Tell us a little bit more about your journey. I do see that you were an education teacher for a little while, but what brought you here into championing and providing services on digital accessibility?
Dominique Dunlop: Well, like you said, I was an inclusive education, special education teacher. I went into that field right out of high school, headed to university for that, with a strong passion for championing inclusivity at that point.
When I had my kids, I found I needed to move away from teaching. I needed to be at home and focus my attention on them as opposed to in the classroom. So I walked away from teaching at that point, not really sure what my plans were. And then COVID came around, everything changed, and I kind of fell into the world of digital marketing at that point, being home with the kids.
From there, I realized that as much as the digital marketing stuff was paying the bills and was okay, I had absolutely no passion for it. I was having a really hard time continuing on. So I decided it was time to step back and figure out how I could use my passions, my strengths, and my value for inclusion, while still achieving what I needed on the home front.
It kind of morphed into focusing on digital accessibility at that point and marrying together the digital marketing with my inclusive education background.
Maria Bryan: Don't you love when things just come together? I feel like that didn’t happen until almost the end of my thirties, when it was like, okay, this makes sense. All these little things that I thought I was putting on the back burner—like, why did I get that master’s degree? Or how did I end up in the suburbs of Tallahassee? But they all just kind of came together for the purpose.
Dominique Dunlop: They all have value. They all feed into the long-term story.
Maria Bryan: Yeah.
Dominique Dunlop: And just kind of knowing where they fit.
Maria Bryan: Tell us a little bit more about your experience as an inclusive education teacher and someone—you’ve mentioned having ADHD, if you're comfortable talking about that—how has that shaped your worldview and perspective on accessibility?
Dominique Dunlop: I think for me, the biggest thing is that inclusion has to come from a human perspective. Whatever we're doing needs to be humans doing it for humans.
We can check all the boxes we want, we can meet all of the legal criteria, but if at the end of the day we're not making it usable by actual humans, what is the point?
There’s a big push in the accessibility space where organizations tend to focus on compliance—how can we make sure we're legally compliant, which is absolutely important. Nobody wants to get involved in an ADA lawsuit. But if you approach it from a human perspective, you're almost guaranteed to check off those legal boxes. It’s just a shift in how we look at it.
I bring a really humanistic approach after spending almost two decades working with young children in inclusive settings. And like you said, having ADHD myself, I’m always thinking—what can we do to make it work best for people?
It’s important to keep that at the forefront, especially now with AI and all these robotics taking over. It has to be humans at the forefront. Otherwise, the effort, funding, and time we’re putting into it won’t bring forward the benefits we want.
Maria Bryan: That’s so important, and I’m thrilled that you said that. I was in marketing communications for so long, and accessibility felt very overwhelming to me—things like alt text, avoiding strings of emojis. We don’t always understand who might be impacted or why it matters.
But if you think about someone who is hard of seeing or hearing, and these are the tools they use to better consume your content, you start to get it. Like when you have a string of emojis, it sounds like total nonsense to a screen reader. Understanding and humanizing it helps you realize there’s more diversity than we previously thought.
Even if you’re ADHD, OCD, Type A, or Type B, everyone has a way they prefer to consume information. I love this human perspective you bring.
And I think that leads well into this next point. You know I work in trauma-informed and ethical storytelling, and sometimes we do things because they’re the “ethical” thing, which often just means “the nice thing.” But when push comes to shove, being a good person or good nonprofit can fall to the back burner.
So I’m a little concerned when we frame accessibility as just a nice or ethical thing. I love how you frame accessibility as going beyond that. When you have an accessible web presence, it amplifies your mission, expands your reach, and builds trust. Can you unpack that?
Dominique Dunlop: Absolutely. Like you said, accessibility is a huge part of building trust, especially as we move more online every day. We do everything online—volunteers, funders, supporters, and the people you’re trying to serve.
You mentioned that diversity is bigger than we think. I hear from a lot of people, “Why would we even bother? Our audience doesn’t have disabilities.” The reality is, they do. You just don’t know it.
The more inclusive we are and the more we make sure everyone has access, the better we’re setting ourselves up. It ensures your messaging can reach all the communities you’re trying to serve. That includes physical disabilities, cognitive ones like ADHD, and more.
If I hit your website and it’s walls of jargon-filled text, I’m out. I can’t do it. But if it’s clean, skimmable, and readable with plain language, I’m more likely to stay.
When your content isn’t accessible, you’re unintentionally leaving people out, especially those who already face systemic barriers. And just because nobody has complained doesn’t mean everything’s okay. Most people won’t complain—they just won’t come back, and they’ll take their support with them.
People are a lot more likely to speak up about negative experiences than positive ones. That means they take their support, trust, and dollars with them—and maybe even influence others to do the same.
People can tell when you’ve put care into making your website, emails, and content welcoming. And they can tell when they don’t feel welcome. That includes cultural differences, racial accessibility, economic accessibility—there’s so much.
As a bonus—not the main reason—but accessible content is a lot more searchable and SEO-friendly. Accessible websites perform better in Google rankings. It shouldn’t be the driver, but it’s a great bonus when it starts paying off. Ultimately, accessible communication strengthens your impact, your relationships, and your organization’s reputation.
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What’s coming to mind as you say all this—sometimes I think people listening to my podcast think I have a grudge against nonprofit leaders, which I don’t. I’ve been in middle management for most of my career, and I work with a lot of folks in that role.
While leaders are values-driven, when we come to them and say we need to do things differently to be more accessible, they might hit resistance. Let’s give them a little grace. They may be overwhelmed with thousands of other things on their plates.
If you frame it as something that could increase website visitors or supporters, it might be more compelling. That data is great to have in your back pocket when facing resistance.
It’s the same with ethical storytelling. Trauma-informed storytelling is often more creative, more attention-grabbing, and rooted in best practices. But even with that, people can feel overwhelmed. Why do you think folks feel so daunted by taking on website accessibility?
Dominique Dunlop: It’s huge. There are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are the legal standards. Then there's the humanistic side. I find people don’t realize they can just start to dip in. They see it as all or nothing.
I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks who say, “I just don’t have the bandwidth to do it all. I can’t afford a full audit, so it’ll have to wait.” But the reality is that every small step you take has a positive impact.
No, it might not fully check all the compliance boxes, but it will make someone feel more welcome. There’s a fear of doing it wrong or saying the wrong thing. And in today’s climate, some people are even afraid to draw attention to anything related to DEI—and accessibility often gets lumped in.
Maria Bryan: I appreciate you saying we don’t need to start from scratch. For those listening who feel compelled to take a first step—whether it’s on their website, social media, or email—what are a few small steps they can take toward building a more inclusive online presence?
Dominique Dunlop: As a former teacher, I always say it’s okay not to know what you don’t know. Being willing to learn is the biggest step. Even listening to this conversation might be eye-opening for someone who hasn’t thought about it before.
Start by developing awareness. Follow people on LinkedIn, read blog posts, listen to interviews. Then checklists can help. I have some on my site, and there are plenty online. They’re not perfect, but they help you see where you’re at.
Some simple things: add captions to your videos. That helps so many people—not just those with disabilities. I’m a mom with kids at sports games, watching videos with the sound off. If you don’t have captions, I can’t engage.
Same with transcripts. I can read along, highlight parts, and engage differently. These tools help people with disabilities, but they help everyone else too. Think about curb cutouts—originally for wheelchair users, but now we all use them for strollers, carts, and walkers.
Alt text on images is another easy step. It helps screen readers describe the images for visually impaired users. But it also helps when there’s slow internet. Anyone can do it—it just takes time and intention.
As you learn more, be sure your website tools and plugins are also accessible. If your email platform isn’t accessible, and you embed it on your site, you’re breaking your site without realizing it.
But most of all—progress over perfection. Start where you are. Focus on the next step, not the final picture. If you’re committed to learning and adapting, you’re already on the right path.
Maria Bryan: So many good things in there. I’m not confident that I have alt text on all my website images, so you’ve given me a solid to-do. I’ve been better on social media about adding descriptions or alt text.
And yes, it can feel like one more thing—but we adapt all the time. New tools, new platforms, our changing bodies—we’re an adaptable species. I love how you’ve explained that accessibility benefits far more people than we may think.
In my program When Bearing Witness, the first pilot was just me live-teaching. Now it has short videos, transcripts, captions, and a workbook. I always tell people—if you want to draw in your journal, go for it. People learn in so many ways.
Dominique Dunlop: As a former teacher focused on inclusive education, learning styles matter. This conversation could be a podcast, a written blog post, multiple social media posts, or a video. Different people will connect with different formats, even if the content is the same.
Maria Bryan: Right. I think about how I was a solid C student growing up—but I got A’s on every interactive project. I wasn’t great at science, but if I built a science project, I always got an A. Using my hands helped me understand.
Storytelling helped too, which is why I always did well in history and social studies. We need to get creative and listen to how people receive our content.
Thank you so much, Dominique. These were such great insights. You’ve got me excited to improve my messaging and storytelling—and even my programs. How can listeners connect with you and learn more about A11y Impact? And it’s pronounced “Ally,” right?
Dominique Dunlop: Yes—A11y is short for accessibility. The “11” represents the eleven letters removed from the word. So it’s “A11y,” pronounced “Ally.” It stands for accessibility impact.
I’m the founder of A11y Impact, and I’d love to connect with anyone who values inclusion. That’s where we met—on LinkedIn. Send me a message and let me know you heard me here.
You can also head to my website: www.a11yimpact.com. I’ve got blog posts, a few YouTube videos, and resources there. Whether you're just starting out or ready for a full compliance audit, I’d love to help you take that next step.
Maria Bryan: Thank you so much, Dominique. This has been a pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time to be on the show.
Dominique Dunlop: Thank you. It has been so great talking with you.