In preparing for the year ahead, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our organization’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and provide an update to the goals shared in our previous post (Our Commitment to Diversity, Transparency, and Accountability).

In the past few years, we have sought guidance, thought-partnership, and engagement from internal and external stakeholders and collaborators to ensure that we continue to aim high, identify blindspots, and seek every opportunity to create impactful change. 2022 became the year that we brought to life ideas that were born over the past few years, and we are pleased to share some of these exciting milestones.

Beginning in the first half of 2022, we kicked off partnerships with two tools to better serve our employees and promote greater equity within our organization: CultureAmp and Greenhouse. CultureAmp is a science-backed employee engagement platform that delivers data-rich results through feedback, surveys, learning & development modules in partnership with Life Labs, and performance reviews. And Greenhouse has amplified our ability to build DEI best-practices, reminders, and tools into our hiring process. These platforms have become an integral part of our ability to set data-driven goals, drive objective decision making, and analyze opportunities for improvement.

Mid-year 2022, we launched six Employee Resource Groups (AAPI, LGBTQIA+, Latinx, Judaism, Black, and Neurodiversity) which are led by volunteer leaders. These ERGs have quickly become a beloved part of Collectively’s community, offering a safe and inclusive space for our team members while also acting as resource groups for our teams. The ERGs also provide feedback and recommendations for the Collectively Cultural Calendar, which outlines cultural events each quarter and how we celebrate them.

We also began hosting Paid Focus Groups, an initiative that allows our client community to gain a broader perspective for campaign strategies that target underrepresented groups, by tapping into those same communities for feedback. Internally, Paid Focus Groups give our Creative Strategy team the chance to consult with Collectively team members during the content development phase, to get real time feedback and opinions rooted in the lived experiences of members of that demographic.

In addition to these initiatives, we’ve also continued to build a more diverse workforce, with an emphasis on retaining team members via support and inclusion. Our team’s current make-up by ethnicity and gender is below:

We’re conscious of our opportunities moving into 2023, and this year, will focus on gender representation as a whole, as well as ethnic diversity at the leadership level.

We know we have a lot of work to do and we’re committed to continuing this work in 2023 and beyond. We’re looking forward to continuing this work with the support and input of our team members, external partners, and influencer community.

We welcome your input.