Empower Network Membership Benefits & Other Programs
Current and Future Programming OpportunitiesClick here to see all upcoming public events
Membership Benefits
Programs Specifically Designed to address Unique Challenges
Practical, accessible resources & sessions built around the realities of fluctuating capacity. Topics include business foundations, marketing, pricing, systems, creative practice, accessibility, and career redesign.
Weekly + Monthly Community Events
Support and connection without pressure.
Weekly virtual coffee hours
Tech & Business Individual Support Sessions
Pop-up peer support sessions
A Community That Highlights You
Members have opportunities to be highlighted across our Substack, social media channels, and partnerships. We help members share their work through story-driven profiles, interviews, marketing spotlights, and narrative support that centers lived experience.
Members businesses are featured in special campaigns such as
– The annual Holiday Shopping Guide
– 12 Days of Giving Campaign
– Partnerships with business directories
These drives highlight disabled creators and service providers, helping you reach new customers who care about community-led commerce.
Access to new programs
We are always developing new programs, partnerships, and resources for our members as funding and participation allows. If you’d like to be a part of growing our member resources, you can volunteer your time or donate financially to support access to disability-informed resources.
Scholarships and Financial Accessibility
While membership is priced to financially accessible at $10/month, we maintain sponsor-a-member opportunities and program scholarships to ensure cost is never the reason someone cannot participate
The coffee chats are so good! When we talked today about brain fog stealing your inner life and how that quote brought you to tears, I really related to that. Because having memories of your mind being sharp but not being able to access the same brain power you know you’re capable of hits hard sometimes. Having a chronic illness community is invaluable.
I look forward to joining the virtual coffee hour each week – itβs such a welcoming and intentional space to workshop business ideas, share strategies for navigating health challenges (like advocating for yourself during appointments), and support each other through ups and downs. I always leave feeling more grounded, aligned, and on top of things, both personally and professionally.
Future Programs & Funding Needs: To Be Developed
The Empower Fellowship
A hands-on, high-support pathway for hand-selected disabled entrepreneurs who are ready to grow but need help navigating the parts of business that are hardest with fluctuating capacity. This program will be developed in collaboration with business consultants and experts who can provide expert support in marketing, operational systems, financial structure, and more.
Fellows will receive:
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individualized guidance and coaching
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structured accountability
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customized systems tailored for their business model
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peer and community support
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tools for sustainable pacing
Member Scholarships
Funding that removes financial barriers for people who need community, tools, and support but cannot afford membership. Scholarships help ensure no one is shut out of opportunity due to illness, disability, or income constraints.
Accessible Learning Platform
A disability-informed learning management system designed around fluctuating capacity.
This platform will feature short-format lessons, flexible pacing, transcripts, slides, audio options, and real-world tools for building and sustaining a business or independent career while living with chronic illness or disability.
Communications and Content Library
A resource hub that reduces marketing overwhelm for ADHD, Autistic, and otherwise neurodivergent entrepreneurs.
This includes caption banks, templates, scheduling guides, accessibility checklists, and storytelling tools that help creators promote their work without burning out.
Creative & Therapeutic Wellbeing Spaces
Therapeutic, community-centered programs that support mental health and connection.
This includes our partnership with Emporia State University to offer accessible art therapy sessions and future offerings that nurture rest, self-expression, and emotional processing.
Making Entrepreneurship Accessible Initiative
Courses, workshops, and trainings that help mainstream entrepreneurship organizations better support the disability community.
We teach accelerators, SBDCs, incubators, and coworking spaces how to redesign programs with accessibility, pacing, and chronic illness realities at the center.
General Operating Support
These funds keep our community online, our programs running, our accessibility work active, and our platforms stable. Operating support ensures consistency, reliability, and the ability to respond to member needs as they arise.
Staffing and Sustainability
Currently, all programs are run by volunteers. Funding allows us to hire part-time, fractional staff in operations and program leadership.
This creates organizational stability and models the kind of flexible, disability-forward employment structures we advocate for.
The Empower Network isn’t just nice words. They are taking action to support disabled small business owners and make them and their struggles be seen […] it was such a gift to have an article written about me, my struggles, and the empowerment of my business. Not only did this article give me the gift of being seen, I was not required or asked to do a lot of legwork to assist in creating the article. As a disabled small business owner, it means a lot to have work taken off your plate and this is one way that The Empower Network really thinks about the disabled business owners they are supporting.
I got all of my images/blurbs written and submitted late last night before climbing in bed. Can I just say that I am not only excited but proud to have any association at all with such an amazing network?! I plan to keep an eye on The Empower Network and see what other amazing things they do for the disability community. π