Moving from Words to Action

"In the past week, it has seemed like every major company has publicly condemned racism. All-black squares cover corporate Instagram. Executives have made multimillion-dollar pledges to anti-discrimination efforts and programs to support black businesses.

Yet many of the same companies expressing solidarity have contributed to systemic inequality, targeted the black community with unhealthy products and services, and failed to hire, promote and fairly compensate black men and women."

Corporate America Has Failed Black America' - New York Times - June 6, 2020

Last Saturday the Classy team put out a statement condemning racial injustice. While I'm proud of our quick public stance, and the existing multi-year DEI initiatives at Classy, after a week of deep reflection I've come to the stark realization that our words have been speaking louder than our actions over the years. Not only is this a humbling revelation for a company that views itself as progressive, but frankly it's unacceptable. I'm exiting the week with the strongest conviction to right the ship - to make our actions speak louder than our words from here on out.

Lack of progress is inexcusable, and you can hold us to that (as you should every other company across America). But make no mistake about it, after the social media commitments of the past week fall below the fold, excuses will start to run rampant again behind closed doors in Board rooms everywhere:

"We can't lower the bar on talent just for the sake of diversity"

"There's just not enough minority candidates for the skillsets we need"

"It's not our fault that we're in a city that's mostly white"

"The Board has a lot of other more important priorities to focus on right now"

We can't let this happen. Wes Moore, the CEO of our close partner Robin Hood, summed it up nicely in the above New York Times article:

Mr. [Wes] Moore dismissed that notion outright [that there is a pipeline problem], arguing that companies simply aren’t looking hard enough, aren’t recruiting at historically black colleges and universities, and have a monoculture that overlooks black talent.

I agree. It's time that we stop making excuses and simply try a lot harder.

Last year we added a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commitment directly into our company bylaws. Why? The goal was to push us forward, to eliminate excuses and to institutionalize our values around diversity, equity and inclusion for decades to come. As part of this effort, we set up a DEI committee that's comprised of members of our staff (voted into an 18-month term by their peers), members of the Board of Directors and outside advisors (our first two are Chance Patterson & Lidia Martinez). Together, we work to strengthen and accelerate our DEI initiatives to make Classy a more inclusive place to work. We're focused on the following areas and are committed to updating our community as we continue to make progress against each:

• Training: We’re now ensuring that every employee gets to participate in our DEI training each year. We’re also bringing in a third-party resource to help strengthen our training and facilitate ongoing conversations throughout the year. 
• Recruiting: We’ve taken several steps here over the past couple of years, but it hasn't been enough. We're strengthening our recruiting policies again to ensure we are attracting and elevating a more diverse candidate pool. We’ve partnered with BIPOC-specific job boards and are implementing accountability measures akin to the Rooney Rule. 
• Stakeholder Policy: We’re re-evaluating our stakeholder policy to ensure that the partners we work with are aligned with our values around racism.
• DEI Resources: We continue to publish resources to amplify the voices of our clients and the Black community. For example, this blog post summarizes a ton of resources for those who want to do more.
• Annual Diversity Report: We publish a public Diversity Report that helps hold us accountable to the above initiatives.

These initiatives create a solid foundation that we'll continue to build upon until Classy is fully part of the solution. We have a lot of work to do, but we're more committed than ever to move from words to action.

This crosses over into my personal life as well. Yesterday my wife and I brought our sons (8 and 5) to the peaceful protests in San Diego. We made signs and walked alongside thousands of people to express how we feel about the recent horrific events (George, Ahmaud, Breonna and all that came before). We're not perfect parents (far from it), and to be honest, we choose the path of least resistance far too often. This time however, we decided to postpone our existing plans and drag our kids downtown to be part of the demonstration. We only made it through the first mile or two, but seeing people of every color come together peacefully to protest something that we all believe is wrong was a powerful experience (and also a fundamental right as an American citizens). Our hope as parents is that the memory of the day will help impress upon our kids that words can be a great starting point, but actions are what define us. And the same will ring true at Classy moving forward, let us prove it to you.

- Scot

***

Our initial statement for reference:

Racism has no place in this world. We must do better. Classy stands in solidarity in the fight against inequality and injustice towards the Black community after the horrific events in Baltimore, Georgia, and Minnesota.

As an American company that exists to serve the greater good, we will not sit idly by while institutional racism continues to persist in this country. Classy will continue to empower the nonprofits on our platform who fight for justice and equality while creating stronger policies that help eliminate racism in the nonprofit sector.

We will also be increasing the level of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion awareness and training within our own company, because we believe the solution starts with a stronger awareness of our own individual biases.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Taylor, Arbery, and Floyd families.

- Classy