As we continue to grow and evolve, we are committed to incorporating principles and practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything that we do. Recognizing that this is an ongoing process, you can read more about our aim, the ongoing work, and how you can join in on the conversation below.

We know that having diverse teammates and an inclusive work environment makes us a smarter and more creative, aware, whole team. We aim to continuously push one another’s thinking, challenge long-held beliefs and assumptions, and leverage and expand our diversity to explore new, uncharted areas. We are hungry to drive profound social impact in communities around the world and know that to be effective in that endeavor, we have to see ourselves in the communities we aim to serve.

We believe our team will be strongest and best positioned to realize our vision if we are:

• Diverse—with differences in race, ethnicity, sexual identity, culture, age, gender expression, ability, economic status, education, ideology, experience, and more.

• Equitable—where people from all backgrounds are treated fairly and view our firm as a level playing field; and

• Inclusive—where all people feel complete, heard, respected, understood, valued, connected, and able to do their best work.

We know this is ongoing work, and the closer we get to creating this team, the more value we will be able to provide to the social sector and the more impact we will be able to have on the world.

While integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a critical part of everyone’s job at the firm, the DEI Team is responsible for leading and supporting the company’s efforts in this area and holding the firm accountable to our actions (or inaction). The primary goal of the DEI team is to help the firm integrate DEI into the way that we do everything. The DEI Team is comprised of a diverse subset of our team as it relates to the following attributes:

• Ability
• Age
• Education background
• Ethnicity/race
• Gender
• Immigration status
• Parental status
• Religion
• Role & positional authority
• Sexual orientation
• Size
• Socioeconomic status
• Years at the firm

The team is responsible for leading firm efforts around continuous learning and evolution; ensuring DEI is woven into the fabric of our work, culture, and policies; and evaluating our progress over time.

We’re committed to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do. Below is a recap of what we have done and what we are currently focusing on:

• We have worked with diversity, equity, and inclusion professionals to help us understand our areas of growth, specifically as it relates to our hiring practices and communications. Through this work we overhauled our hiring process to make our job postings more accessible to diverse audiences; established protocols for blind resume and cover letter reviews; have begun to prioritize outreach to diverse networks and individuals at the onset of each hiring process, and have integrated values- and skills-based interview questions to mitigate our biases by not just looking for people who are a ‘culture fit’ with our team, but for individuals that align with our firm values and have the skills needed to perform within each role.
• We have invested in professional development opportunities for our team members to better understand issues and opportunities related to DEI, supporting team members to explore their own identities and privilege.
• We have revised and continue to periodically revisit our cultural norms, company values, and employee handbook to ensure that our policies and culture are equitable and inclusive.
• We have engaged in challenging conversations as a team about how our different backgrounds shape our perspectives and experiences. To further our understanding of the historical and structural factors that contribute to inequity, we have also reflected on social sector inequities and racial disparities in wealth, health, and education outcomes.
• We have partnered with organizations working towards equity and building power for historically marginalized groups, discounting our services to meet budget constraints for small or start-up organizations.
• We created a Leadership Team that goes beyond our three founders and now reflects greater gender and racial diversity.
• We have launched a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Team to lead and support the company’s efforts in this work, hold the firm accountable to our actions (or inaction), and help us fully integrate DEI into the way that we do everything – both internally in our policies and practices and externally with our clients and projects.
• In response to the murder of countless Black people at the hands of the police reinforced by systemic and structural racism, we publicly committed to standing in solidarity with those fighting against police brutality, advancing efforts to ensure racial justice, and working to create an equitable social compact. We also created a racial justice learning and action strategy rooted in our values that include:
  • Learning Up by launching an ongoing learning practice to facilitate team learning around anti-racism and racial justice and facilitating a process for our philanthropic advising team to learn together about racial justice work in our communities and collectively decide how to distribute a donation from the company.
  • Teaming Up by examining each of our lines of business to understand how they might serve to uphold the status quo and what we can do differently in our approach to our client work to promote race equity
  • Stepping Up by designing a set of pro bono services around real and evolving needs facing organizations led by and serving people of color working in the racial justice space
  • Living It Up by supporting our team’s mental health – surveying our staff to understand evolving team needs, researching options for expanded mental health services, and checking in more regularly with managers on the team to make sure they have what they need to support their direct reports.

We are in this work for the long haul and will continue to share our progress and challenges in the spirit of continuous learning, evolution, and growth.

Our current and past team has done an incredible job to get us where we are today, but to get us to where we need to go we need fundamental changes from within. As we grow as individuals and as a firm, we see diversity, equity, and inclusion as the strongest levers to create long lasting and meaningful social change for the communities we seek to serve.

We are looking to create the team and network that will get us there. People who will learn with us, challenge us, and create with us.

This isn’t about paying lip service to diversity, equity, or inclusion; this is fundamental to who we are and who we want to be.

As part of this work we’re committed to listening to the voices of others. If you have ideas or thoughts you'd like to share on how we can best fulfill this vision, we'd love to hear from you.