Our Story:
Every organization is built on systems.
Some of those systems help people participate, connect, and thrive. Others—often unintentionally—create barriers that make it harder for people to access information, contribute their talents, or feel like they truly belong.
At Common Ground, we believe those barriers are opportunities—not for blame, but for learning, growth, and meaningful change.
Our work began with a simple belief: accessibility is about more than meeting standards. It's about creating organizations where people can fully access, participate, contribute, and belong.
That belief has been shaped by years of experience in education, accessibility, nonprofit leadership, and organizational systems.
Founder Heidi Esbensen is a special education teacher, a college instructor with more than a decade of experience teaching at Portland Community College, and holds master's degrees in both Sociology and Education. Throughout her career, she has worked alongside diverse populations, including individuals with multiple disabilities, while also leading, teaching, advocating, and helping organizations navigate complex systems.
Those experiences revealed something important.
Many barriers are not created by bad intentions. They are created by systems that were designed without hearing from the people who experience those barriers every day.
That realization became the foundation of Common Ground.
Rather than looking only for compliance, we help organizations understand the experiences of the people they serve. We evaluate how physical spaces, digital environments, communication, policies, leadership, operations, and organizational culture work together to either create or remove barriers.
We call this the Common Ground Lens.
The Common Ground Lens combines recognized accessibility standards with systems thinking, organizational analysis, and lived experience. It doesn't stop at asking whether something meets a standard. It asks why a barrier exists, who it affects, what systems created it, and what practical changes can create lasting improvement.
Our goal is not simply to identify problems.
Our goal is to help organizations build stronger systems that work better for everyone.
Whether we're evaluating a building, a website, internal communication, organizational policies, community programs, or leadership practices, we approach every assessment with the same guiding question:
How can this organization create greater access, participation, and belonging for the people it serves?
We believe the most meaningful improvements happen when organizations listen to the people living with barriers today. Those insights don't just improve access for one individual—they create systems that make participation easier for everyone who comes after them.
That is the work we love.
That is the work that inspires us.
And that is why Common Ground exists.
“Accessibility is about more than meeting standards. It's about creating a world where people can fully access, participate, contribute, and belong.”
—Heidi