Black Lives Matter
We grieve the countless Black lives lost to racial injustice and police brutality, and we stand in solidarity with those fighting for justice in their names. We have spent the last several weeks listening to the calls for accountability and examining our own company. We recognize many ways we can step up to move toward equity and inclusion in our organization, our community, our industry, and our nation. As a company, we must be better listeners, allies, and advocates for Black and Brown people, including our colleagues and clients. As a start, this includes examining our hiring practices, educating ourselves, learning to have uncomfortable conversations, and training our people. Real change requires insight, empathy, and hard work. And we are committed to doing this work, with diligence and humility, to help move the world forward and bring about permanent change.
To our colleagues:
We are committed to helping our employees become a community of allies who have a deep understanding of racial injustice and their own unconscious biases.
- By providing access to resources, training, coaching, and education in these areas.
- By creating a safe space to have open and honest conversations that are difficult and necessary.
- By inviting our employees to work flexible hours in order to attend protests for Black Lives Matter or other movements for justice.
We are committed to helping our employees choose civic leaders who create and support anti-racist laws and policies that will start to dismantle systemic racism at the government level.
- By making Election Day a paid holiday so that our employees can vote and make their voices heard.
We are committed to holding ourselves accountable to examine our own business to build a more equitable and diverse workplace.
- By creating, pursuing, and upholding standards at Ologie for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- By evolving our hiring process and leadership development practices, so we can employ and advance more people of color.
- By proactively seeking partnerships with historically underrepresented businesses and individuals for freelance and subcontracting opportunities.
To our industry:
We are committed to helping our clients make the world a better place for Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, especially at colleges and universities.
- By proactively collecting best practices, points of view, and thought leadership toward greater equity in higher education, and sharing them with our clients to help them make better decisions about race, access, equity, and inclusion.
- By making sure that the communication and marketing efforts we develop with our higher education clients are authentic and aligned with inclusion and equity practices on their campuses.
- By advocating for greater inclusion and representation through research, strategy, and creative endeavors to ensure that the experiences we help communicate are backed by the proper support systems and resources.
We are committed to helping create a bigger pipeline of Black professionals and other professionals of color in marketing, communications, and branding.
- By donating to the HBCU Foundation, which provides scholarships for students of color to obtain educations at historically Black colleges and universities.
- By creating a scholarship at Columbus College of Art and Design to be awarded to a student of color.
- By creating opportunities to expose young students of color to our profession, and to help them see themselves in our industry.
To the Black community:
We are committed to helping, promoting, and enabling organizations that contribute to the Black community.
- By dedicating our annual pro bono brand initiative to a Black-owned business, to elevate the branding and marketing tools they can use to promote their goods and services.
- By finding, supporting, and engaging with Black-owned businesses as partners and vendors.
