About Us
A very brief history
DisabledGo is an award-winning disability organisation of 9 years standing based in the UK but increasingly operating in Europe. The organisation was founded by Dr. Gregory Burke, a wheelchair user since the age of 16, who wanted to find a practical way to encourage disabled people to access and contribute to their community.
DisabledGo is now one of the largest disability organisations in Europe with a turnover larger than the UK’s Employers Forum on Disability and comparable with the Royal National Institute of the Blind.
The DisabledGo service was born from a two year consultation exercise with disabled people across the UK with a variety of different impairments.
The focus of the research was to identify the barriers to involvement and participation. A key barrier was identified as ‘not knowing what venues were accessible to a disabled person’s individual needs’.
From these grassroots beginnings, DisabledGo involved over 800 groups of disabled people in designing a venue-survey methodology. This methodology enables DisabledGo surveyors to capture the information that empowers disabled people to choose venues that they feel meet their specific requirements.
DisabledGo produces fine-grain, pan-disability access guides to locations and venues across the UK and now in Europe too. Every venue is surveyed in person. Every venue is subject to the same standard of surveying which means users can rely on the information in their town and city and in the towns and cities they would like to visit which have taken part in the DisabledGo Access Initiative.
DisabledGo publishes the information on www.disabledgo.info and on participating Partners’ websites. The organisation serves over 110,000 people every month, recording over 1.6 million hits.
As an international organisation, DisabledGo ensures it remains responsive to the needs of local disabled people by setting up local steering groups in every area in which the organisation works. In 2007, DisabledGo held over 3 events every week; ensuring that disabled people are in control of the organisation’s aims and direction.
Gregory is the chief executive of DisabledGo to this day and leads a team of 35 people, dedicated to enabling disabled people to secure choice, empowerment and freedom.
DisabledGo is the provider of choice for the Public Sector seeking to include disabled people via publishing highly detailed access guides to their venues and services. Over 150 Public Sector Partners work with DisabledGo; from 1 in 4 UK Universities to 1 in 3 London Boroughs as well as Local Authorities spread from Aberdeen to Chichester, Liverpool to Norwich.
In the private sector too, DisabledGo is the gold standard of disabled access guides and disability-related services with long-term relationships with prestige brands as diverse as Marks & Spencer, British Telecom and Land Securities.
Working from an increasingly pan-European perspective, DisabledGo was recently showcased at the 48th Annual General Assembly of the Union of the Capitals of the European Union, hosted by Dublin City Council – another DisabledGo Partner.
Awards and Accolades and Features
According to market research by Allegra Strategies Ltd, DisabledGo is the most popular disability access information internet site measured by traffic.
DisabledGo has 1.6 million hits a month and over 110,000 unique users every month viewing over 500,000 pages each month.
DisabledGo has been Radio 2’s Website of the Day.
DisabledGo has been the New Statesman’s Website of the Month.
DisabledGo made the final and were runners-up in the New Statesman’s New Media Awards for ‘contribution to civic society’.
In partnership with sponsors, Marks & Spencer, DisabledGo received the Business in the Community ‘Big Tick’ award for ‘helping people to realise their ability’.
As a measure of our emerging moral authority, DisabledGo was the only disability organisation to be invited onto BBC Breakfast News on a recent UN International Day of Disabled People.
As further evidence of DisabledGo’s championing of disabled people’s rights, our chief executive was interviewed live from the London Stock Exchange on BBC News on the day Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act came into force.
Our founder and chief executive, Dr. Gregory Burke, is recognised as being ‘one of the UK’s leading social entrepreneurs’ by the world-renowned Cranfield Business University’s MBA Magazine.
Gregory has been interviewed on BBC Radio 4 Today; BBC Radio 5 Live, Wake up to Money and the subject of a Radio 4 You and Yours piece.
