Our Mission

At present, there are nearly 30 million deaf/hard of hearing people living in the United States who, despite their pronounced interest, have been largely excluded from meaningful access to news and media. Since 2006, it has been the mission of The Deaf Professional Arts Network (D-PAN) to change this.

A 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, D-PAN was originally founded to make music and music culture – the predominant shared language and experience of people worldwide – universally accessible by extending its reach to the deaf and hard of hearing. 

D-PAN has pioneered the art form of creating high-quality American Sign Language (ASL) video content. Over the years, D-PAN has grown steadfast, evolving to meet the ever-evolving landscape of accessibility in media. Having become a household name in the Deaf community, D-PAN has become the gold standard in specialized ASL access to landmark cultural moments, including but not limited to the presidential debates, accessible music videos, documentaries, and more. D-PAN has grown its access services beyond ASL interpretation with captioning, voiceovers, access consulting, and more. 

D-PAN’s high-impact achievements include:

• Creating real-time ASL access to the U.S. presidential debates every election year since 2016, in addition to powerful political moments such as inaugurations and state funerals.  
• Making history to offer unique, highly curated real-time ASL access to the NFL Super Bowl Halftime show for the first time ever in 2017, amassing over 500k views.
• ASL interpretations for daily presidential COVID-19 briefings when the country needed information access the most.
• The creation of DPAN.TV (The Sign Language Channel), a capstone of the channel being DTV News which featured signing deaf anchors alongside accompanying voiceover and closed captions.
• A first-of-its-kind, full-scale livestream production and administrative facility in Ferndale, Michigan, employing a fully deaf, hard of hearing, and signing team.
• Employed hundreds of members of the Deaf community for the purpose of landmark technology innovation.
• A summation of millions of unique viewers and hundreds of thousands of followers across social media platforms.

Proudly Deaf and ASL-centric since its founding, D-PAN now works closely with many high profile production companies to make information and media accessible. We welcome your support as we continue on our mission to bring meaningful access to the Deaf community, create new opportunities, and reshape the way the world thinks about accessibility.