The National Business & Disability Council

Booz Allen Hamilton Disability Affinity Resource Group

With permission from Booz Allen Hamilton, we are sharing the following information:

The name of the group is Disability Forum:

In 1998, CEO Ralph Shrader approved the creation of a Disability Task Force that would work to identify physical and attitudinal barriers throughout the firm. This task force would begin to tackle these barriers through increased accessibility, training and, ultimately, an employee forum that would continue to promote Disability Employment Awareness throughout the firm.

In March 1999 the Disability Task Force submitted their findings to CEO Ralph Shrader and Dr. Shrader approved the establishment of:

The mission and goal of the Disability Forum is to serve as a resource and an advocate to foster a cooperative, accessible, and supportive environment to the Booz Allen community. The Forum works with the firm to educate the community by increasing awareness and understanding of disability-related issues. Specific goals include:

The DF Leadership Steering committee meets via conference call for 1 hour on the first Tuesday of every month.  When events/activities require additional planning, sub workgroups are put together and meetings occur on an ad hoc basis.  These meetings usually consist of additional Forum members who are not necessarily part of the Leadership Team. 

Booz Allen Hamilton often host events that bring in members of the disability community outside of the firm. This is not only in reference to outside guests attending special speaker events, but also brings in individuals with disabilities to take part in various Booz Allen sponsored events.  For example, Disability Mentoring Day (DMD) brings in working professionals and college students with disabilities to gain a better understanding of Booz Allen and Management Consulting.  Booz Allen Hamilton hosted a similar event with the MS Society and provided workshops to educate participants on disclosure issues, resume writing, interview skills, etc.  These events are also an opportunity to recruit talent that aligns with Booz Allen Hamilton’s support of diversity.

Although there are individuals interested in what the Forum does, it is extremely challenging to find people who have the time to commit to regularly participating in event planning. They have overcome this by using Hello, a Booz Allen Hamilton internal social networking site (hello.bah.com) on a more regular basis to advertise volunteer needs, and they have also started reaching out to committed individuals who would like to help with one SPECIFIC event, but may not have the time to assist with everything.

Booz Allen Hamilton builds a strong leadership team with support starting at the partner level.  They have been extremely fortunate to have partner sponsor support that endorses all of the Forum activities.  Also, they have found it rewarding to have each of the members of their leadership team lead one effort per year, and they have the liberty to build their support team (sub workgroup) as they see fit.  They all stay connected on a monthly basis to share lessons learned and best practices, and often share staff RESOURCES that they know will be a good fit for a given project.

NBDC would like to thank Booz Allen Hamilton for their contribution to this initiative and encourage all NBDC members to contact Information Services at lfrancis@abilitieeonline.org for information on how to be a part of the Disability Affinity-Resource Group Consortium.