Publisher: Evolve Your Workforce

Think Beyond the Label began in January 2010 as a campaign to raise awareness about the business case for hiring people with disabilities. Through our humorous, award-winning print, TV and digital advertisements and website, we work to counter attitudes and myths about people with disabilities—as well as demonstrate to businesses how to "think beyond the label" when it comes to hiring this group. Our message is simple: labels get in the way, disabilities rarely do. Think Beyond the Label is evolving into a leading private-public partnership that facilitates more streamlined collaboration between public and private workforce systems. These collaborations help build the pipeline of qualified candidates with disabilities and meet the overall hiring needs of businesses. Our program infrastructure spans state health and human service and employment agencies with federal grants; businesses; and Health & Disability Advocates, a national nonprofit organization that operates the Think Beyond the Label campaign. What we do We provide businesses with up-to-date information, tools and the state and local resources they need to hire people with disabilities and integrate them into their workforce. Whether through outreach to our state employment partners, engagement with job seekers who register on our site, or advocacy with policymakers, we are always working to help businesses further their hiring needs. We offer job seekers a network and digital hub that provides information, tools and resources to aid in their job search so they can find meaningful employment in their chosen field. Our jobs feed allows users to search and apply for jobs with companies that are actively seeking to hire them. We also have a widely read blog and e-newsletter and proactively communicate with job seekers through our social media channels. Health & Disability Advocates (HDA), is a national nonprofit organization that promotes income security and improved health care access for children, people with disabilities, and low-income older adults. HDA is spearheading the Think Beyond the Label campaign on behalf of more than 40 states and various national and regional organizations by serving as its project manager.