Using AI to Improve Accessibility: Making Nonprofit Content Inclusive for All Audiences
Accessibility isn't just a legal requirement—it's essential for mission impact. Nonprofits need to reach all audiences, including people with disabilities. AI tools can help make websites, documents, videos, and communications accessible, ensuring your content reaches everyone who needs it.
Nonprofits exist to serve communities, but inaccessible content excludes people with disabilities from accessing services, information, and opportunities. Whether it's a website that screen readers can't navigate, a video without captions, or a document without proper formatting, accessibility barriers prevent nonprofits from fully achieving their mission.
AI tools can help nonprofits make content accessible more efficiently and accurately than manual methods. AI can automatically generate captions, create alt text for images, check accessibility compliance, translate content, and adapt materials for different accessibility needs—enabling nonprofits to reach broader audiences without proportionally increasing costs.
This guide explores how nonprofits can use AI to improve accessibility, from automated captioning to accessibility auditing and content adaptation. For related guidance on inclusive practices, see our article on using AI for social justice.
Why Accessibility Matters for Nonprofits
Making content accessible provides several critical benefits:
Reach More People
Accessible content ensures people with disabilities can access your services, information, and programs. This expands your reach and enables you to serve more people.
Legal Compliance
Accessibility is required by law in many jurisdictions (ADA, Section 508, WCAG). Accessible content helps nonprofits avoid legal issues and demonstrate compliance.
Better User Experience
Accessible design often improves usability for everyone, not just people with disabilities. Clear navigation, readable text, and well-structured content benefit all users.
Mission Alignment
For nonprofits serving people with disabilities, accessibility is core to mission. But all nonprofits should ensure their content is inclusive and accessible to everyone.
AI Applications for Accessibility
Automated Captioning
AI can automatically generate captions for videos:
- Video captions: AI can transcribe speech and generate accurate captions for videos, making content accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing
- Live captions: AI can provide real-time captions for live events and webinars
- Multi-language captions: AI can translate captions into multiple languages, expanding accessibility globally
- Caption editing: AI can help edit and improve auto-generated captions for accuracy
Automated captioning has become remarkably accurate, with modern AI systems achieving word error rates below 5% for clear audio. This accuracy makes AI-generated captions suitable for most content, though human review is still recommended for important materials or content with technical terminology, multiple speakers, or background noise. The speed of AI captioning—often processing hours of video in minutes—makes it feasible to caption all video content, not just high-priority materials.
Beyond basic transcription, AI can enhance captions with additional accessibility features. Some systems can identify and label speakers, describe non-speech audio (like music or sound effects), and format captions for optimal readability. AI can also detect and flag potentially problematic content—such as rapid speech or overlapping dialogue—that might make captions difficult to follow, enabling content creators to improve audio quality or adjust pacing.
Example: A nonprofit uses AI to automatically caption all video content on their website. The AI transcribes speech, identifies speakers, and generates captions that can be edited for accuracy. This makes video content accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing without requiring manual transcription.
Image Alt Text Generation
AI can automatically generate alt text for images:
- Automatic alt text: AI can analyze images and generate descriptive alt text that screen readers can read to people who are blind or visually impaired
- Context-aware descriptions: AI can generate alt text that's relevant to the content context, not just generic descriptions
- Bulk processing: AI can process large numbers of images quickly, making it feasible to add alt text to entire websites
Effective alt text goes beyond simply describing what's in an image—it explains why the image matters in the context of the content. AI can analyze both the image itself and the surrounding text to generate contextually relevant descriptions. For example, if an image of a graph appears in an article about fundraising trends, AI can describe not just that it's a graph, but what the graph shows and how it relates to the article's content.
However, AI-generated alt text isn't always perfect, especially for complex images, charts, or images with text. It's important to review and refine AI-generated alt text, particularly for images that convey important information. Some AI tools can flag images that likely need human review—such as charts, diagrams, or images with text—helping prioritize which alt text to refine manually.
Document Accessibility
AI can help make documents accessible:
- PDF remediation: AI can identify and fix accessibility issues in PDFs, such as missing tags, improper heading structure, or missing alt text
- Document structure: AI can analyze documents and suggest proper heading structures, lists, and other formatting for accessibility
- Text recognition: AI can extract text from scanned documents and images, making them accessible to screen readers
PDF accessibility is particularly challenging because PDFs are often created from various sources and may lack proper structure. AI can analyze PDFs to identify accessibility issues—such as missing document tags, improper reading order, or images without alt text—and automatically fix many of these issues. For complex PDFs with tables, forms, or complex layouts, AI can identify areas that need manual attention, helping prioritize remediation efforts.
Document structure is fundamental to accessibility. Screen readers rely on proper heading hierarchies, list structures, and other semantic markup to help users navigate documents. AI can analyze document content to identify logical structure and suggest appropriate heading levels, list formatting, and other structural elements. This automated structure analysis can significantly reduce the time required to make documents accessible while ensuring consistency across documents.
Website Accessibility Auditing
AI can audit websites for accessibility issues:
- Automated scanning: AI can scan websites and identify accessibility violations, such as missing alt text, poor color contrast, or keyboard navigation issues
- WCAG compliance: AI can check websites against WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards and identify areas for improvement
- Continuous monitoring: AI can continuously monitor websites for new accessibility issues as content is added or updated
Automated accessibility scanning can identify many common issues, but it's important to understand its limitations. AI can detect technical issues like missing alt text or poor color contrast, but it may miss usability problems that only become apparent when people with disabilities actually use the site. For example, AI might verify that a form has proper labels, but it can't determine whether the form is actually easy to use with a screen reader. Combining AI scanning with user testing provides the most comprehensive accessibility assessment.
Continuous monitoring is particularly valuable for dynamic websites where content changes frequently. AI can scan websites regularly—daily, weekly, or after each content update—to identify new accessibility issues as they're introduced. This proactive approach prevents accessibility from degrading over time and ensures that new content is accessible from the start. Some AI tools can also integrate with content management systems to check content before it's published, preventing accessibility issues from going live.
Content Adaptation
AI can adapt content for different accessibility needs:
- Text simplification: AI can simplify complex text, making it more accessible to people with cognitive disabilities or limited literacy
- Language translation: AI can translate content into multiple languages, expanding accessibility to non-English speakers
- Format conversion: AI can convert content between formats (e.g., text to audio, audio to text) to meet different accessibility needs
Text simplification is an important accessibility feature that's often overlooked. Many nonprofits create content with complex language or jargon that can be difficult for people with cognitive disabilities, limited literacy, or those who speak English as a second language. AI can analyze text and suggest simpler alternatives while maintaining the original meaning. This makes content accessible to broader audiences without requiring nonprofits to create separate simplified versions manually.
Format conversion capabilities enable nonprofits to provide content in multiple formats, meeting diverse accessibility needs. AI can convert text to audio for people who are blind or prefer audio content, convert audio to text for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, or convert between other formats as needed. This flexibility ensures that content is accessible regardless of how people prefer to consume it or what assistive technologies they use.
AI Tools for Accessibility
Captioning Tools
AI-powered video captioning:
- YouTube Auto-Captions: Free automatic captioning for YouTube videos. Can be edited for accuracy.
- Rev: AI-powered captioning service with human editing options. Offers nonprofit discounts.
- Otter.ai: AI transcription and captioning for videos and live events. Offers free and paid plans.
- Microsoft Stream: Automatic captions for videos uploaded to Microsoft 365. Available through Microsoft 365 Nonprofit.
Accessibility Auditing
Tools for checking website accessibility:
- WAVE: Free web accessibility evaluation tool. Identifies accessibility issues and suggests fixes.
- axe DevTools: AI-powered accessibility testing for websites. Free browser extension available.
- Accessibility Insights: Microsoft's free accessibility testing tool. Helps identify and fix accessibility issues.
- Siteimprove: Comprehensive accessibility monitoring platform. Offers nonprofit pricing.
Document Accessibility
Tools for making documents accessible:
- Adobe Acrobat Pro: Includes AI-powered accessibility features for PDFs. Available through TechSoup.
- Microsoft Accessibility Checker: Built into Microsoft Office. Identifies and helps fix accessibility issues in documents.
- CommonLook: PDF accessibility tools with AI features. Offers nonprofit discounts.
Best Practices for AI-Powered Accessibility
Review AI Output
AI-generated accessibility features aren't always perfect. Review and edit AI-generated captions, alt text, and other accessibility features to ensure accuracy and quality. AI is a starting point, not a final solution.
Test with Real Users
Test accessibility with people who actually use assistive technologies. AI tools can identify technical issues, but real users can identify usability problems that AI might miss. Include people with disabilities in testing.
Build Accessibility In
Don't just fix accessibility issues after the fact—build accessibility into content creation from the start. Use AI tools during content creation to ensure new content is accessible from the beginning.
Follow Standards
Follow established accessibility standards like WCAG 2.1. AI tools can help check compliance, but understanding standards helps ensure comprehensive accessibility beyond what AI can detect.
Ready to Make Your Content Accessible?
One Hundred Nights helps nonprofits implement AI tools that make content accessible to all audiences, ensuring inclusive communication and service delivery.
Our team can help you:
- Audit websites and content for accessibility issues
- Implement AI-powered captioning and alt text generation
- Set up accessibility monitoring and compliance checking
- Train staff on creating accessible content
- Ensure compliance with accessibility standards