Equity, Diversity and Inclusion - How are we doing and what difference is it making?

My last post was back at the beginning of 2024 and now we are already two-thirds of the way through the year. I thought it was time to reflect on our organisational ambitions and my personal commitment to making progress happen.

The desire for change is a collective effort and many of my Better Society Capital colleagues are deeply involved in this work. For those who are not, I am keen to ensure it doesn’t feel remote, inaccessible or irrelevant to their day jobs. The summary below highlights some of the initiatives we’ve undertaken—those still very much in progress, and candidly, a few in response to areas where we’ve fallen short. I hope it shows the breadth of involvement from across the BSC team.

It is also important to say every action we take is connected to our three commitments which underpin our EDI priorities:

1.?? Intention?- We will seek continual improvement to make progress towards our goals

2.?? Transparency?- We will share what progress we are making and what challenges we have encountered

3.?? Building Capacity?- We will learn from others and support our own staff through training and development

?Progress so far

·??? To amplify good practice we have published:?Spotlight case study on equity, diversity and inclusion from SIB.

·??? The BVCA included a case study of BSC as a signatory to the Investing in Women Code in their?guide to Diversity and Inclusion in Limited Partnership Teams.

·??? We collaborated with the Diversity Forum, Access the Foundation for Social Investment and the Pathway Fund on a project aimed at driving diversity and inclusion through the use of data across the social investment market and published this blog focussing on the findings and recommendations.

·??? Our Legal Counsel, John White, was part of the Equalising Deal Terms project, which aims to acknowledge and address the power imbalance that exists with contracts, investments and access to legal advice. He’s summarised some of the themes from the report in his post here.

·??? With the input and support of our own colleagues, we have updated and improved our shared parental leave policy and trialled the use of culture representatives in the recruitment of our new CFOO

·??? Emma Jones, Communications Director, shared her personal reflections on the?importance of mental wellbeing?during Mental Health Awareness Week as we put a call out for more colleagues to become Mental Health First Aiders.

·??? Annelise Sauter, ESG and EDI Manager, has helped us to sign up and become a member of the?Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD).?

·??? Our Executive Committee participated in structured feedback around Inclusive Leadership and shared their reflections, learnings and commitments in a recent internal staff update.? Our SMT took part in a dedicated session on EDI to help build skills and confidence through practical application for our wider leadership team.

·??? We have launched our?colleague co-developed EDI Policy.? Defining our responsibilities as an employer, clarifying individual responsibilities, and providing guidance on what to do when raising a concern.?

·??? We now have a dedicated representative on our Staff Council.?Huge thanks to Susan Sony for volunteering to take on this role and providing another channel for any member of staff to raise any EDI related topics for discussion and action.

What’s next?

Laurice Harris, Director People and Talent and Stephen Muers CEO ?have been working with colleagues to explore and build a programme of work around psychological safety.

?We are working with an external agency, Folk, to help embed inclusivity with a particular focus on language within our internal and external communications and More Diverse Voices?supporting our Communications and Good Finance teams. Inclusivity is essential in our communications but finding our voice without fear of “getting it wrong” is so important.?

In September we have been completing our annual self-assessment return to the Diversity Forum?as a manifesto signatory. To help strengthen our EDI practice and how we look at measures of success, Morinade Akinbobola, Impact Engagement Manager, is leading our work to create an EDI Theory of Change.

In short there is a lot going on, so it’s positive and not surprising we continue to get lots of questions! Our focus for the last quarter is how we really hold ourselves to account setting baselines, KPIs and measures of success for all areas of our EDI work. I’ll share more on this in my next update.

?My reflection led to two areas we would welcome help with so here goes ….?

·?????? We are looking for best practice from peers from across the sector including learning calls, visits and case studies so if you spot something interesting or have something you would like to share, please do get in touch

·?????? I read recently about three potential levels of employee engagement - distant, neutral or actively engaged. If you have strategies that have proved successful or equally those that just haven’t worked (there’s maybe as much here in us all just not trying the same things) I would love to know more.

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