“I really appreciated your facilitation style in the session you facilitated with Rebel. As for my experience of your facilitation style, you just tracked everything really well, you kept it moving, but didn’t hesitate to interrupt when something needed adjusted or to cover the image descriptions, etc. I appreciated all the content and co-facilitators, and having someone who is managing all of the little technical details and group accountability for accessibility measures is really helpful for participants and co-facilitators alike and you fulfilled that role really well in that session. I hope we will have opportunities to meet properly and potentially collaborate soon!“ -Theresa Logan, Principal of Subduction Consulting LLC, November 6 & 9, 2022

“Deanna Yadollahi has shown excellent leadership potential. They developed a Disabled co- working space called CripCreate that has taken place weekly since 2020. In the beginning, they facilitated weekly; now, it has a rolling community facilitation setup, which demonstrates growth and sustainability. Deanna works with me as a co-facilitator at Leaping Water Consulting. Leaping Water is a liberation practice that does educational sessions primarily about Disability Justice for organizations, foundations, and other institutions. They have excellent ideas developing curricula and making slide decks. Occasionally those ideas run away from us and need to be reined in. I have witnessed how thoughtful and meticulous they are during co-creation sessions. Deanna is also an excellent co-facilitator, demonstrating Disability Justice values. Once, when I had an emergent access need, Deanna jumped in and facilitated a discussion during a presentation to a youth group. This demonstrates their flexibility and leadership strengths. Still, a growth area is facilitating an entire educational session to the public independently. In addition to facilitating at Leaping Water, Deanna is also the elected Secretary for Disability Justice Dreaming, an international Disability Justice cultural organization in development since 2020. Deanna is reliable, thoughtful, and committed to their role and to the organization. In a world where flakiness is common, Deanna shows steadfastness. That is very valuable to a young organization. Finally, I enjoy working with Deanna. I consider their ideas valuable and their personality eager and pleasant.” -Rebel Sidney Fayola Black Burnett, Founder of Leaping Water Consulting & Disability Justice Dreaming, September 20, 2022

“I’ve had the extreme honor, pleasure, and benefit of knowing, collaborating with, and employing Deanna Yadollahi through an online training “Decolonization 4 Dreamers”  in 2021. Deanna was our Access Guide, consulting with us on our curriculum, structures, and overall arch, while also supporting the staff and student body in learning about and meeting their access needs. My entire adult life my work has been centered around transformational healing, social justice, and creative liberation. From the moment we connected, Deanna blew my paradigms, praxis, and embodied experience wide open. The level of permission they create in space, for all of us to truly be who we are, ask for what we need, and even transform our cultures responsively, in and of it itself is an antidote to so much of our struggles in our current world. This and their other teachings became integral to my praxis. Deanna approaches with immense care, skill, humility, honesty, & passion!!! Anyone and everyone would be lucky to learn from and grow with Deanna. If you’re reading this, don’t miss out!!!” -Amani Will, Co-Founder of HoodHippie Universe, July 29, 2022

“Deanna Yadollahi is a force to be reckoned with! They did an amazing accessibility review for us and provided invaluable resources from their wealth of knowledge. Their expertise has really helped us in our development journey and their work was thorough, professional, and precise. As a person, Deanna is a joy to work with and communicates well. I'd recommend for everyone to work with Deanna, especially if they want to make a big difference in their organization or personally. Thank you for everything Deanna!” -Desi Carson, Director of Programs and Partnerships at IDEAS Generation, June 28, 2022

“Our community was blown away by the way Deanna and Rebel modeled an accessible presentation and space for all participants. Participants expressed feeling more courage to engage in equity work. At the same time, the social justice truths they spoke were received as prophetic and deeply spiritual.  We are attempting to integrate practices they modeled for us, like access check-ins, frequent five minute breaks, and slowing down. Even though we're a "disability organization" and move slowly in many realms, we are often tempted to move quickly where we can. Deanna and Rebel helped us remember the power of slowing down, both to increase accessibility, and to serve as an antidote to white, ableist culture.” -Jessica Bridges, Director of Community Life at L’Arche Portland, June 26, 2022

“I collaborated with Deanna Yadollahi as I was serving as a disability access consultant for AERA, one of the largest annual academic conferences. Deanna offered invaluable edits and proved to be an expert in thinking through cutting edge access strategies while diving into the most complex and challenging elements of accommodations that aimed to go far beyond compliance. Always advocating for access through a disability justice lens, they were easy to work with, patient, and responsive.” -Emily Smith Beitiks, Associate (now Interim) Director of the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability, June 22, 2022

“With the about 50 staff that attended, we got strongly positive feedback about your presentation. Staff really appreciated not only the Gender Identity aspects of your presentation but also the multi-layered, intersectional content as well as the words you spoke about creating safe space with true access.

A few of the staff social workers asked if they could contact you, so I thought I’d reach out and ask if I can share your email.

I’d like to post the links to the resources you put into the chat on our internal staff intranet. You did a great job despite us demonstrating so clearly how much we need to grow in terms of disability justice and access for all people.

I’ll gather feedback from staff over the next few weeks and let you know any input I get, but I felt your thoughts, perspectives and experiences were well received by our staff.

We will definitely keep you in mind for future projects as we continue to work on the culture of our agency, and find ways to evolve our thinking and improve our responsiveness in areas like access, disability justice and gender identity.

I know wherever the next steps in your work take you, you will continue to make significant impacts in improving individual lives and changing local communities to the benefit of all of us.

Thanks again, Deanna, for the talk.. I really found it valuable! Again thanks for your time and effort, and your presentation! All the best to you in your exciting future endeavors!” -Eric Zigman, Executive Director of Golden Gate Regional Center, April 28 & May 5, 2021