Accessibility
At Franklin Women, we celebrate the diversity of our community and are committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment where everyone feels supported and able to take part.
As a grassroots social enterprise working to build a health and medical research ecosystem where women thrive, we know true inclusion means making sure our programs, events and initiatives are easy to access so that everyone can participate fully and comfortably.
Here are some ways we try to do that.
What we’re doing
Cost and equity
We do charge fees for some of our activities to help sustain our work, but we want our offerings to be accessible to everyone in our community.
We provide:
- Equity-based pricing for memberships, including reduced or complimentary memberships when needed (read more here)
- Lower-cost activities like webinars and free events such as our Wikipedia edit-a-thons
- Tiered pricing for in-person and hybrid events, with reduced rates for our members
- Sponsored places for Franklin Women members in our Mentoring Program
If there’s something you’d love to join but the cost is getting in the way, please get in touch.
Events
We deliver our events in a range of formats (in-person, online and hybrid) and at different times throughout the year, including before work, during lunch and in the evening.
When you register, we’ll always ask if you have any accessibility requirements so we can help make the space comfortable for you.
And as most (if not all!) of our events include informal networking, we offer a buddy system to make things more approachable and relaxed if you are new or find networking a bit icky.
Representation and inclusion
We recognise that accessibility is also about who is included in the conversation. To truly reflect the women and allies of all genders who are part of the Franklin Women community, we aim to represent a diversity of voices and lived experiences across our activities.
We hope this shows up in the people we invite to speak at our events, the contributors we feature in our newsletter, the stories we share and the images we use on our website and social media. But if you ever feel we’re missing something important (or not getting it quite right) we’d really like to know.
We’re also working to make our digital spaces easier to navigate and more inclusive. This includes using image descriptions, alt text and writing in clear, easy-to-understand language.
Some of this is still a work in progress, so we welcome any tips or feedback!
We’re still learning
While we do our best to make sure everything we offer is accessible, there may be times, especially when working with external venues or platforms, where we encounter limitations.
If this happens, we’ll do what we can to find solutions and we’re always open to your suggestions.
We’d love to hear from you
If you’ve got feedback, ideas or accessibility needs you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. Your input and experiences help us do better and build a more inclusive Franklin Women community.
You can contact us at [email protected] any time.
