We're redesigning life's most impactful moments to drive justice for disabled Americans.
Audience members are seated in a theater. Grammy Award Winner, Melissa Etheridge is seated on a platform among them playing guitar. Colorful stage lights and a bright spotlight are on Melissa. 3 American Sign Language interpreters are working near Melissa.
Welcome to Invest In Access
At Invest In Access, we're dedicated to building an America where disability justice is woven into every live event and workplace, so the next generation inherits a world where full economic, civic, and cultural participation for disabled Americans is structurally guaranteed and unremarkable by design.
Our Priority: Accessibility, Reimagined at Scale
Across the United States, accessibility is still delivered through an accommodation-based model that relies on last-minute coordination and inconsistent execution. This model cannot scale, and as a result, it limits opportunity, visibility, and workforce sustainability.
Invest In Access is transforming accessibility into infrastructure. We embed American Sign Language and other accessibility services directly into live events and workplaces, standardizing best practices and building stable, scalable systems that serve disabled Americans while advancing accessibility as a profession and a civic function.
Currently in the United States
Accommodation Based Model
Accessibility added in a late stage or
ad-hoc basisNo standardized placement or sizing of interpreters
Manual vendor outreach via call, email, text
Inconsistent interpreter availability and skill
Unstable, episodic, workforce engagement
The Proposed Solution
Infrastructure Based Model
American Sign Language integrated by default in production workflows (turn on/off option as Captions are)
Global best practice standardized placement and sizing of interpreters
Centralized, repeatable delivery systems
Consistent visibility across live, hybrid, broadcast-adjacent formats
Stable, remote, location-independent employment pathways
How: We Turn Accessibility Into Infrastructure
We have built the model. Now we are scaling it across live events, workplaces,
and broadcast infrastructure through standardized systems, deaf co-led workforce development, and cross-sector partnerships.
Public Leadership
Federal and state policymakers have a historic opportunity to elevate American Sign Language as essential public communication infrastructure.
By establishing clear national standards and integrating real-time ASL into civic broadcasts and emergency communications, the United States can align with global best practices and strengthen public trust, readiness, and inclusion.
Philanthropic Investment
Philanthropy enables the build phase. Early-stage investment accelerates the design of deaf co-led workforce models, standardized interpreter placement and sizing, and production-grade digital systems for real-time ASL integration.
With catalytic support, this work moves from concept to implementation — creating durable, scalable systems that public agencies alone cannot build at speed.
Media & Broadcast Leadership
Broadcasters and streaming platforms have the opportunity to lead by integrating ASL directly into modern production workflows.
Implementation can begin with defined programming blocks, elections, major civic moments, emergency coverage, and expand over time. Early participation shapes national standards, signals innovative leadership, and establishes credibility in public communication.
American Sign Language as Broadcast Infrastructure
Accessibility in U.S. broadcast media remains incomplete.
While closed captioning is embedded as essential infrastructure, standardized, regulated, and delivered at scale, American Sign Language (ASL) remains episodic, discretionary, and inconsistently applied. For many Deaf Americans, captions are not linguistically equivalent access. ASL is their primary language.
This white paper identifies a persistent systems failure: the absence of operational infrastructure that enables real-time ASL delivery at scale across broadcast and streaming environments.
Drawing on more than fifteen years of implementation across live events, media production, and major public moments, and grounded in international broadcast standards, this paper demonstrates that the barrier to nationwide ASL integration is not technical feasibility, cost, or workforce capacity. It is the absence of standardized adoption pathways within U.S. broadcast systems.
Across allied nations, sign language is already operationalized as core civic communication infrastructure. The United States has the capability to do the same.
This paper outlines practical, production-aware standards that broadcasters can implement immediately — establishing consistent delivery models, quality assurance mechanisms, and scalable workforce integration.
The opportunity is clear: move from accommodation to infrastructure.
Six interlocking hands of varying skin tone. One person with curly brown hair smiles as she gazes at the joined hands.
Justice Driven. Accountable Leaders.
Invest In Access is a 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to fostering a more just America. With upward of 10 years in business, we’ve established ourselves as accountable leaders, trusted allies, and successful implementers.