Each year, Living Proof Advocacy designates one advocacy sector as the focus of LPA Beyond—our annual pro bono program— and offers free support to organizations doing advocacy work in that space. In past years we've focused on the arts and humanities, the LGBTQIA+ community and those working toward environmental justice. Each year we ask the same question: where is there an urgent need for amplified first-person advocacy right now?
This year, one of the places that need surfaces is among organizations working within or alongside disability communities—and specifically with the people with disabilities and their allies who are fighting for their rights to live, work and participate fully in the life of their communities.
Why Now: A Community Under Pressure
The disability rights community has a long and powerful history of first-person advocacy. The movement that produced the Americans with Disabilities Act — signed on July 26,1990 and celebrating its 36th anniversary this year—was built on the voices of disabled people demanding to be heard in the rooms where decisions about their lives were being made.
In July 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law, cutting federal Medicaid funding by approximately $1 trillion over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office projects that these cuts will result in nearly 11.8 million individuals losing their Medicaid coverage—and people with disabilities are among the first and hardest hit.
Medicaid is not simply health insurance for disabled Americans. It funds the home and community-based services that make independent living possible: personal care aides, supported employment, transportation, assistive technology and day-to-day supports that allow people to live their lives in their own homes. The stories behind this support are the stories of individuals who, rather than spending their years in institutions, are able to live on their own.
States are already beginning to implement changes: new work requirements, more frequent eligibility checks, caps on how states can fund their programs. The policy landscape is moving fast, with direct impact on lives.
Why First-Person Voice Matters More Than Ever
At Living Proof Advocacy, we believe that first-person stories from lived experience are among the most powerful tools available for changing minds, shifting policy and building the kind of public understanding that makes political will possible. It is what decades of work with advocates across causes and communities has taught us.
The disability rights community understands this deeply. The disability rights movement built its power on this principle—“Nothing about us without us”—adopted and popularized in the 1990s through the work of activists and James I. Charlton's landmark book of the same name. It captures the insistence that the people most affected by a policy must be present—in their own words, in their own voices—in every conversation about it.
What LPA Beyond 2026 Offers
This year, in a random drawing from submitted/nominated organizations, we will award free access to our online course, Telling Your Stories to Make a Difference: Fundamentals of Storytelling for Advocacy, to two organizations working within or alongside disability communities. Each selected organization will receive two to three course seats for community members or staff who are preparing to advocate publicly with stories from their lived experience.
In return, we will ask one thing: that participants share their experience of the course with us, especially any feedback on the accessibility of the course itself. As an organization committed to inclusive practice, we want to if any barriers exist and how we can do better.
As a public benefit corporation, LPA is dedicated to the success of advocates and organizations that promote the arts, community, health and safety, environmentalism, equity, peace, justice and antiracism.