At Cornershop Creative, we help good people do good work, and that job starts at home, by hiring good people who do good work.
By “good people,” we mean a beautifully diverse group of professionals who care deeply about the nonprofits we support. By “good work,” we mean useful, accessible websites and donation forms that truly serve the communities for whom they are intended.
It’s easy to write pretty words to describe how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are important to us. It’s an entirely different thing to back them up with action. Here’s how we embody these beliefs:
We value our team diversity
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have been a priority at Cornershop Creative since day one. Diversity has always guided our hiring practices. At the moment we published this statement in early 2023, we are proud to say:
- 25% of our full time staff members, and 38% of our senior employees, come from a racial minority
- 50% of our full time staff members and 38% of our senior employees identify as female or transgender
- 20% of our management team comes from a racial minority
- 60% of our management team identifies as female
These numbers are not a happy accident: they are the result of mindful decisions we have made, all based on the knowledge that we as a team are stronger when our members come from different backgrounds, different perspectives, and different communities.
In addition to diversity through the makeup of our team, we also support our team members’ individual antiracist efforts by granting time off to attend local social justice protests, participate in webinars or other learning efforts, and work through their own personal stories in relation to racism in America. We include Juneteenth on our list of paid company holidays – and have done so since well before it was a Federal holiday – to allow our team time to commemorate the day with reflection, service, and action.
We value our clients and how they express diversity, equity, and inclusion
We’re picky about who we work with, and have been known to advise our clients to solve communication problems by looking inward, considering the makeup of their boards and teams to ensure they represent the communities they serve.
We offer discounts to organizations that are actively fighting racism and racial injustice: if we can be even a tiny part of that fight, we consider ourselves lucky.
We value our communities
We give back to our communities by making donations to nonprofits on a regular basis, and we prioritize organizations who are fighting racism and injustice. Our gifts are determined by our team, which further ensures the diversity of our giving: each organization is nominated by team members, who themselves have diverse interests and concerns. While the list obviously changes with each giving opportunity, you can see an example of those organizations in our blog post, Working Against White Supremacy.
We support & respect each other
Cornershop is a place where we support and respect each other. All our employees and clients agree to work together and listen with empathy and humility, knowing that we all have different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ways of communicating. We use people’s personal pronouns at all times and introduce ourselves to new clients with those pronouns, so everyone – including both our team members and our clients – know they are respected and welcomed.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work is never done
We know a new holiday and some donations won’t fix everything. We’re not doing this perfectly and will continue to strive to do better. But we’re proud of the work that we’ve done so far, and we’re even more proud to work as a company and team to further the realization of a more just, progressive world.