Employers can now sponsor the ABLE Resource Center's video explainers, eligibility tools, and calculators as a co-branded benefits resource for their own employees. Sponsorship funds the research and content updates that keep the whole national resource center free for families, states, and advocates.
One in four working-age adults in the United States has a disability. When employers add ABLE contributions to their benefits package, HR leaders tell us the same thing every time. Employees do not open the account because they do not understand what it is, they cannot figure out if they are eligible, they fear losing SSI or Medicaid, and they cannot find a plain-language explanation they trust. That knowledge gap is what our resource center exists to close. Employer sponsorship lets us bring the resource directly into your benefits portal, at scale, without you having to build the content.
Every tier funds ongoing research and content updates. The differences are in co-branding, workforce reach, and reporting.
A Workforce Partner deployment lives at your company's own URL, carries your logo alongside RISEI Lab's, and pre-populates the Employer ROI Calculator with your workforce numbers. Employees see one resource, not two.
Request a live preview →Sponsorship revenue funds four things. Every dollar is tracked and reported to sponsors in the annual impact report.
Michelle Yin and the RISEI Lab team update causal-identification estimates as new BRFSS and CPS data come out. This is not a one-time report. Every year, the numbers refresh.
State plan rules change. Federal policy shifts. QDE guidance evolves. Sponsorship funds the RA time to keep every page current within thirty days of a regulatory change.
The core resource center remains free for families, self-advocates, state agencies, and researchers, regardless of employer sponsorship. Sponsors underwrite that access.
Sponsor questions drive our roadmap. The Employer ROI Calculator, the QDE Classifier, and the Life-Stage Planner were all built in response to partner questions.
We meet with your HR, benefits, or DEI lead to understand your workforce, your ABLE offering (if any), and the questions your employees ask. No sales pitch, no obligation.
We send a short memo proposing a tier, deliverables, timeline, and cost. You share it internally, we revise once, and we move to agreement or we part cleanly.
Co-branding, tool configuration, and integration if applicable. We handle the technical work. Your benefits team handles the internal announcement. Most launches land inside open enrollment.
Quarterly research updates. Ad hoc HR office hours. Annual impact report with aggregated usage numbers, uptake of the ABLE match program, and estimated retention effect for your workforce.
Workforce Partners and Anchor Partners receive an annual impact report every March, in time for benefits planning cycles. Below is a sample of what one page looks like.
Metrics above are illustrative. Actual reports aggregate anonymized page-view and interaction data and cite the estimation method used for retention savings. All employee-level data remains anonymized and is never shared with the sponsor at an individual level.
Sponsorship of the ABLE Resource Center at Northwestern University is a charitable contribution to the university, and is deductible to the extent allowed under federal law. Your finance team will receive a letter of acknowledgment for tax purposes.
No. It supplements your benefits materials with plain-language explainers, eligibility tools, and calculators built on causal research. Your benefits team continues to own plan selection, enrollment mechanics, and internal communications.
Aggregated, anonymized usage numbers. Never individual-level data. Never anything that could identify a specific employee or their eligibility status. We take the privacy of employees with disabilities seriously and have a written data-handling protocol we share during intake.
No. Never. The resource center is a nonprofit research initiative housed at Northwestern University's RISEI Lab. There is no advertising, no marketing partnership, no data resale, and no lead generation on the platform.
Even better. Existing match programs typically see low take-up because employees do not understand what ABLE is. Sponsoring the resource center is the fastest way to lift take-up on the match you are already funding.
Yes. Anchor Partners can have the co-branded landing page name and feature the disability ERG, and can add ERG-authored content sections. Workforce Partners can add ERG endorsement quotes.
Co-branding sunsets thirty days after the sponsorship period ends. Your employees continue to have access to the public resource center at riseilab.org, exactly as they did before sponsorship. There is no lock-in.
The employer sponsorship program launches July 2026. RISEI Lab is currently in conversation with three early anchor partners across financial services, health care, and higher education. Founding-sponsor recognition is available for the first five signatories.
Tell us a little about your workforce and we will follow up within three business days to schedule an intake call. No obligation.