One formula for achieving diversity
Because nothing happens by accident.
Going from talk to walk
I’ve been an Astia Advisor for years, as they worked their mission to level the playing field for start-ups with women founders and executives. Astia provides a pipeline for angel investors to tap into to increase deal flow with such companies, and they rely on people like me to review and advise on the submissions they receive, ensuring that angels are reviewing a vetted pipeline. Astia has long been working on adding something powerful to their portfolio of opportunities: An investment fund, run directly by Astia itself. Today they announced they have raised a $100MM fund, focused on investing in early-stage women-led ventures.
It’s huge news, and it’s a necessary addition to the investing landscape. It brings me no joy at all to say that the percentage of VC capital going to women-led start-ups has barely budged at all since 2007, when Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins, and I raised our first round for BlogHer. So, if you’ve been wondering if all the vaunted DEI (Diversity, Equity, inclusion) initiatives that made the news since 2020 are still needed, or if somehow all the talk has “fixed” things, wonder no more.
Today seemed like a good day to re-visit and re-share my own formula for walking that talk on DEI. I mean, it’s always a good day for that, but Astia’s big news prompted me to do so this time! So here it is:
1. Value diversity, equity, and inclusion
To achieve DEI, you must value DEI. Sounds obvious, but while people know DEI is a watchword today, that doesn’t mean they’ve personally bought into its value.
Here’s a frequent real-world example of how to tell a company knows DEI is important but doesn’t really buy into it (i.e. they’re not walking the talk): When I get a marketing email from a conference and see that the speaker list in the email is nearly gender-equal, I am never content to take the email’s word for it. I click in to see all speakers and discover they front-loaded all their women speakers into the email for marketing purposes, but the full roster is only about 20-25% women.
That’s the action of an organizer that understands others value DEI but doesn’t value it themselves.
Well, why should you value DEI? Or how do make your boss care about DEI?
Pick from a variety of good reasons:
Because representation matters. And helps you grow. The more people who can see themselves working at your company or attending your event or taking your course, the more demand you will be in.
Because different experiences bring different ways of thinking and different solutions. And when people in the room can see that their diverse perspectives matter, they will feel more comfortable sharing them.
Because data shows diverse teams have better outcomes. My former co-founder Lisa wrote a whole white paper synthesizing all the data supporting this in investing alone.
Take your pick, in fact, I’d personally start with data and spice it up with a hypothesis about what that would mean for your company. Either way, figure out why DEI matters to you. Why it has value as a standalone goal.
2. Prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion
Agreeing that DEI is good, however, is not a magic pill that changes all your actions and outcomes. Nope, then you have to prioritize it to achieve it. It doesn’t happen by magic; it doesn’t happen by wishing. It happens by setting the intention. And setting goals. And measuring results. And adjusting your approach if you’re not seeing the result you want.
IN other words, DEI goals are like ANY OTHER GOAL. As a real-world example, BlogHer set specific goals for our speaking rosters: At least 40% women of color, at least 10% LGBTQ+ community members, and so on. We tracked if we met or exceeded our goals. We talked about it explicitly. We were accountable to ourselves first.
It’s an old management saw: If you don’t measure it, you don’t care about it (or something to that effect) and I heartily concur. So many tech companies say nice words every year about how they have to do better in hiring from diverse communities. And every year their numbers barely budge. Maybe it’s because no one worries that it will affect their raise or their bonus or even their employment itself if the numbers don’t budge. But you should worry if you can’t make progress in this arena.
3. Ask for help to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion
I totally get it. When you ask for help to find more women, or people of color, or people from the LGBTQ+ community, or Boomers, or the disabled community, it can feel like you’re carrying a big sign saying, “Hey, I’m a sexist.” Or racist, or or or…
Get over it. Have the humility to ask for help.
I spent a lot of time building relationships with folks who were embedded in different communities, and I’d share my criteria and ask for their help in finding those unsung experts who deserved the spotlight.
Three things to keep in mind:
Build relationships. I tried to not only approach people when I needed something. I also tried to approach my network with opportunities that would be valuable to them, not just me…delivering potential revenue or exposure or powerful relationships.
Share rich criteria. I made it clear what my criteria were because it went without saying that I was looking for awesome, unsung, qualified experts.
Honor expertise in addition to identity. I wasn’t looking, most of the time, for people to come talk about their identity itself, but rather simply to be themselves talking about their area of expertise. Of course, we sometimes had the obligatory “women in tech” or similar session that was about identity, but news flash: If those are the only places you’re placing diverse speakers, you’ve failed. Full stop. This has happened to me countless times, and I can promise you I preferred talking about our groundbreaking business model or unique vibrant community and how it grew vs. talking about an age-old problem that, by the way, I am not the one to fix.
And that’s it. That’s my formula:
Value diversity;
prioritize diversity;
ask for help to achieve diversity.
I like to assure people it’s not hard, but you have to set the intention. Without intention, it’s left to chance, and we all can do so much better.
What would you add? What stories do you tell to bring other people on board to value, prioritize, and ultimately achieve inclusivity goals?