Past Clients

WREN is a gender justice advocacy organization based in South Carolina, and we are part of a multi-racial coalition called the Southeastern Alliance for Reproductive Equity. AORTA supported the development and facilitation of SEARE’s white working group. Jenna helped us define our intent and our structure, and facilitated discussions to help us work toward dismantling white supremacy in ourselves as individuals, in our organizations within the broader reproductive freedom movement. She helped us develop the practices and muscles we needed to be able to manage a productive working group and to move from contemplation toward action.

Amplify Georgia is a grassroots organization consiting of seven partner organizations working to advance access to abortion care in Georgia. As a two-year young campaign, we were seeking support in 2020 to formalizing our theory of change, reorganizing our partner structure and developing our first set of three-year strategic priorities. In hiring a consultant, it was vital for us to find a group that not only shared our values of equity, anti-racism and collaboration but would center them in their work. Bex did just this. They also brought deep expertise in strategic planning, coalition design and facilitation, which they were able to seamlessly translate into a fully virtual process. I can honestly say that it is because of the energy, commitment to social justice, and creative problem solving skills that AORTA brought to the table that our strategic planning was a success.

Pioneer Valley Workers Center has a mission of building power with workers and immigrants through grassroots organizing, mutual aid, and by incubating worker-owned cooperatives. We initially approached AORTA when it was becoming clear that our systems for collective leadership and accountability were failing us, and we were beginning to reckon with the effects of racism and white supremacy within our structure. Dana began by teaching us new systems for democratic decision making and meeting facilitation. She gave us concrete tools, and supported our designing our own collective leadership structure. Now, after a year of working with her, we face the future with a newly designed organizational structure that all members of staff co-created, and a new confidence.

Kairos is a national organization that is building power in the digital realm and making sure that tech works for all of us. Kairos has been partnering with AORTA since 2018. We wanted to make sure that our racial justice values translated into explicit components of our national fellowship program. We have been blessed to work with Autumn who collaborated with Kairos to develop curriculum and training modules that now form the framework of our resiliency political education track of our national fellowship. Autumn is a truly gifted facilitator, bringing compassion, agitation, and curiosity. Kairos emerged as a fellowship program as authoritarianism took root in the White House. Black, indigenous, and other communities of color have been under deepened assault. As our movements have suffered harm has been weaponized. Autumn helped Kairos Fellows and staff to remain steadfast to our purpose and utilize the values we've co created as our guide. Liberation calls for nothing less.

Eliminating Racism and Claiming/Celebrating Equity (ERACCE) trains people to recognize and dismantle systemic racism in their institutions throughout the state of Michigan. As our work grows, we need internal structures that can keep up. We were reacting to growth with temporary solutions that then became permanent, and it was frustrating, demoralizing, and a drain on everyone's energy. We needed effective facilitation that we could trust to hold our values while moving us forward. AORTA facilitated an excellent retreat that held staff while we acknowledged what wasn't working in our beloved organization. From that, we created a plan for consulting hours for the year. The insight and energy we got from AORTA's work inspired us to reorganize staff roles and write a grant that is now providing health insurance for all of us. We weren't sure we could find consultants who would see us without pushing us into dominant culture ways of doing business. We're now planning a second retreat with AORTA and another year of consulting hours. It's good to have partners in the work.