The Disability Equality Index was originally created as a joint initiative of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the United States’ largest disability rights organization, and Disability:IN, the global business disability inclusion network, to collectively advance the inclusion of people with disabilities. The complementary organizations leveraged unique strengths to make the project relevant and credible to corporations and the disability community.
The benchmark’s initial design and early iterations were informed by the Disability Equality Index Advisory Committee which was a diverse group of business leaders, policy experts, and disability advocates. The framework and methodology for the Disability Equality Index was patterned after the original Corporate Equality Index (CEI) from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as both instruments are intended to be confidential, transparent tools to enable corporations to receive an objective score on their self-reported policies and practices.
Following a pilot with 48 participating U.S. companies in 2014, the Disability Equality Index officially launched as a scored benchmark in 2015 with 80 U.S. companies. Today as the Disability Equality Index enters its second decade in 2025, participation has grown 7x from the tool’s inaugural year to 542 participants in 2024.
A two-year unscored Global Disability Equality Index pilot concluded in 2022. The pilot was limited to select companies and achieved participation from 98 companies spanning 66 countries. Findings from the global pilot informed the launch of a scored benchmark that opened in 2024 to seven new countries in addition to the United States.