About Us
Autastic® offers resources, community, and mutual aid centering adult-identified autistic BIPOC.
Created #ByUsForUs, Autastic® fills the gap after learning you’re autistic so we can rebuild the lives we deserve, together 💪🏽💪🏾💪🏿
Founded in 2018 by Diane J. Wright, Autastic® was the first and largest community of its kind created by a woman of color. Today, we are led, co-created, and upheld daily by neurodivergent, multiply disabled, and historically racialized autistic volunteers.
Autastic offers dedicated spaces centering autistic people of color. We are proudly grounded in liberatory practice with the African diaspora at our heart.
Autastic is independent, volunteer-run, and fiscally sponsored by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization run by and for autistic people.
🫶🏽 Donations keep our doors open. Donate here.
#ByUsForUs
Our Team
Our Founder
Diane J. Wright (she/her) is an autistic and ADHD Canadian-American and Afro-Caribbean author, filmmaker, and disability justice advocate. After discovering she was autistic in her early forties, she set out to rebuild her life to finally fit—then opened the door for others to do the same.
Diane’s work speaks to the distinct experiences of adult-identified autistic people, including those who self-identify or who cannot safely or equitably access a formal diagnosis. She shares wisdom from conversations within the autistic community, autistic-led scholarship, psychology and human behavior research, racial and disability justice leadership, and her own lived experience,
Since 2018, she has worked at the intersection of autism, race, and media representation, contributing to such beloved and iconic productions such as The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, PBS Renegades: Thomas Wiggins: Composing the Future, HBO Max’s heartwarming documentary Santa Camp, and the CBC’s turn on the global phenom, The Assembly.
In 2023, Diane was named the first Ford School Hawkins Family Disability Policy Fellow at the Center for Racial Justice, University of Michigan. She has lectured at Antioch University and served as Adjunct Professor of English at the University of La Verne. Today, she creates transformative educational experiences within the autistic community.
Diane serves #AutisticBIPoC communities through an Afrocentric lens grounded in liberation practice. Learn more about Diane and her contributions here.
Diane J Wright
Founder of Autastic®
Our Volunteers
Autastic® communities could not be the thoughtful, respectful spaces they continue to be without the generous contributions and dedication of our volunteers.
Autastic moderators arrive as members, experience the difference our culture makes in their lives, then choose to give back by nurturing that culture themselves. Many have been valued, necessary contributors to Autastic for years.
Our volunteers’ selflessness, time, and skill have shaped thousands of lives for the better.
Fundraising
What does Autastic® need rn?
- Invitations to get the word out: podcast episodes, print media interviews, morning shows, panels.
- A part-time publicist connected with, and experienced in, reaching communities of color.
- USD $60K in funding to competitively pay said publicist for one year.
- USD $50K in capacity funding, goods, or services to compensate our 12 volunteer moderators for one year and add part-time content creation support.
Can you make this happen?
Autastic® runs on donations and competitive grant funding.
Our funding sources are:
Social Club memberships
Autastic® Social Clubs are offered a rate that’s affordable for most in order to keep barriers low. Membership fees fund the cost of the Mighty Network platform and other costs of maintaining Autastic.
Our Community Gifting Fund
Donations from the larger autistic community—most often Black and brown autistic adults—power access for BIPOC members requesting financial support.
Ideally, our historically racialized members will not carry the burden of sustaining the very services created for our equity.
Our Giveback Fund
A percentage of every dollar Autastic receives is earmarked to support our member volunteers.
We strive to equitably compensate our member-contributors. At minimum, our most vital partners—Autastic moderators—receive small annual tokens of appreciation as our fund permits.
Photo Credits: Strong arm with logo by Autastic. Tree in open hands sculpture by Lorenzo Quinn. Donation box by Wizdan Zacky Fauzan via Unsplash.
