How to promote and encourage differently-abled participants?

Question

We run a community mostly on slack, with almost 4k participants. We have been creating lots of channels to promote and talk about inclusivity, and intersectionality.

In that spirit, we would like to have channels where members that are differently-abled can communicate, or for developers to learn more about accessibility, like ADA rules and best practices.

What are some ways to reach out to other communities to increase their engagement, and name these channels in a way that are easily understood and encourage participation?

Answer 1

One approach is to find potentially interested online communities via Google, Reddit subreddit search and so on, but then instead of rightaway mentioning your channel -- which can be interpreted as spam -- to instead either message the moderators, or first start a question thread, in which you ask if it's ok to mention your community. If they say no, you don't post, but if they say yes, you can go ahead (and might have gained more info on what posting style is appropriate, and the mods may now understand your good intentions).

Good luck!