Here and now, we declare Preston Kelly’s commitment to stand with – and become part of – equal justice and anti-racism efforts in America. The second O in our agency CO-OP values is Openness (openness to diverse backgrounds, thinking and ideas), we will live this value first by shutting up and listening, examining our own biased and racist behaviors, then acting from our hearts. The following are the first steps we are taking, upon what we believe is good advice, to open our minds, support the immediate needs of our BIPOC communities, and start doing some good in the world:

We will:

• Make immediate financial contributions to three organizations with a proven impact in racial equality and cultural awakening and progress:
  • The BrandLab
  • Marnita’s Table
  • Urban Ventures

• Hold regular staff-led diversity discussions to educate ourselves and evolve our culture to one not only welcoming of BIPOC but actively anti-racist as well. Enlist the guidance and support of Marnita’s Table and The Woke Coach
• Attend the Executive Summit on Diversity this fall
• Aggressively change our hiring practices until they reflect the diversity of our community, using The BrandLab and Urban Ventures for guidance and prospects.
• Support our team’s community volunteer and protest efforts with paid vacation days.
• Add to our agency culture committee’s mission to direct anti-racist volunteer efforts and prioritize our ongoing diversity commitments. Our first engagement is to read “White Rage,” recommended by Marnita’s Table.
• Continue to expand our agency of record pro-bono efforts for community support organizations:
  • Second Harvest Heartland
  • The YMCA of the Twin Cities

Where we are today

As a key step toward improving our diversity for good, and living our Openness value, we are following #CommitToChange and The BrandLab suggestions and posting our current annual race/ethnicity/gender employment statistics. We will also post them to our social media channels. We do this so that we can accurately measure our improvement and hold ourselves and our industry publicly accountable in the years to come.

Only the first steps

We recognize these are only first steps, not solutions. But our outsized voice as a creative communications company inspires us with the optimistic belief we can begin to overcome our own biases, change our practices, and even help evolve our community’s racist behaviors. If we listen to and join those who have been actively and passionately fighting this fight for years, we can do our part in helping to accelerate this change … for good.