At Havenly, we stand with the Black community. We remain outraged at the systemic marginalization, repression and outright murder of Black men and women in America. We need to do better.
In particular, I need to do better. The hard fact is that at Havenly, we only have one Black employee on our corporate team. Our diversity in hiring is nowhere near a reflection of the diversity of the nation in which we live. Those are incredibly grim statistics to face as a leader.
So, I’m here to apologize. I’m embarrassed about my lack of attention to our diversity problem here at Havenly. I am ashamed that I, at times, excused our lack of diversity in the past as being ‘too hard to solve’ – as if that made it okay. Obviously, it wasn’t, in fact, okay.
I do identify as a person of color, but I’ve never lived the Black experience. I don’t feel that I run the risk of getting arrested, or worse, killed, just because I’m driving after dark, or bird watching in a public park, or going for a morning jog. I’ll state it very clearly.
Black Lives Matter. Period.
So what can I do?
We took a second to listen to the many voices advocating for ways to effect change – we felt it was important to commit to steps that would make an impact beyond this temporary moment.
I’m outlining some steps, both short and long term, that we want to take as an organization.
Because where we put our money matters.
Havenly will be making a donation of $50,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative, The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Campaign Zero. We will also be matching $25,000 in employee and designer donations to any organization that supports resolving systemic injustice against People of Color.
I will also personally match another $5,000 in employee donations.
A no excuse policy.
We are committing to hiring a diverse team that matches the diversity of the country.
Due to current circumstances, we have temporarily slowed hiring, but as we begin adding new roles, we commit that by the end of 2021, our team’s diversity will match the diversity of the nation: the percent of full time team members at Havenly that identify as POC will meet or exceed the 24% that we see in America.
We will be reporting on our diversity in hiring quarterly, and specifically, we will report on our Black population at Havenly.
Another no excuse policy.
We will commit to amplify more black sellers, designers, and creatives and always support black business.
We can make a difference.
We will provide flexible service days, including an Election Day holiday, for our team members, and encourage them to spend their time doing meaningful service in our community, and helping enable others to vote.
This isn’t the end of our actions, it is just a first step that I felt we could make.
I’m committing myself to doing the work in the long term, and I hope that you’ll judge me not just by what we do today, but over the next weeks, months and years. I’m also committing myself to learning and listening. If you have other things that we can do as an organization, or I can do as an individual, I would love to hear from you.
Lee