Does Diversity Matter?

How does it affect your web site content decisions?

Recent posts on our blog have discussed issues that broadly touch on responsible content creation during the Covid-19 pandemic or allowing your content to raise issues of social justice in contemporary America. We will continue to do this as long as we can identify topics which allow a legitimate connection between those issues and content creation.

This time we’re taking a look at diversity in a broad sense as it relates to your business’ site content. In recent months we’ve been able to observe (and sometimes participate in) discussions some clients have had regarding diversity. We can’t say that there is a single way to achieve it, a single set of “best” actions to take, or any guaranteed way to show that a business believes in it. We can’t even say that any action has shown unambiguous results. But we can share some basic observations which might be useful to others.

What is diversity? It’s a wide-ranging concept. To keep it simple enough to discuss in a single post, let’s say that in America at this time diversity is a rough measure of how well any particular organization or institution reflects the makeup of the community around it. This includes many factors, but some of the most commonly cited are gender, ethnicity, “race,” religion, sexual orientation, and educational level (the quotes around “race” acknowledge that many believe this is an artificial concept).

Inclusion, which often goes hand in hand with diversity, is the effort of a group not only to include others but also to make them feel a part of the group. It might involve seeking these others out, especially when a group lacks diversity, and it can involve changing the way those in an organization behave if they have previously excluded others who did not match their vision of what a member of the group should look like. We’ve bundled both diversity and inclusion into “diversity” for this post.

Does diversity matter?

Yes. Diversity matters. This was true before the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement this spring and it will remain true.

But what does diversity mean for a business and how should it factor in to normal operations—even an operation as seemingly trivial as the work we specialize in, business website content?

The answer to the first question is that diversity means showing that your business understands the community it exists in, both physically and online. That community is expansive: it’s not just the town or city where a business is located, or the target customer base; our world today is deeply and thoroughly interconnected. Even when a business targets only a narrow physical space or a similarly narrow set of customers, it is still connected to (and visible to) the rest of the world. Your business community today potentially includes 4½ billion people with internet service; at a minimum you should behave online as if your business is a “neighbor” to the more than 312 million estimated internet users in the US. That’s a very big neighborhood and includes an amazing amount of diversity. Your business might not have any physical contact with those neighbors, but they are as real as the servers in the cafe down the block from your physical address. You need to be aware of them and not dismiss their existence.

The answer to the second question—how should this factor in to your operations?—is that there are many ways. These can be simple and superficial as well as deep, meaningful, and (to use a cliché), game-changing.

Superficial demonstrations of diversity would include making sure that the photos on your site show a diverse range of individuals who reflect the real diversity of the country. To put it bluntly, a photo of a group meeting should not show a handful of middle-aged white guys.

For some firms this isn’t a problem: one of our past clients was a minority-owned consultancy with roughly 75% non-white staff; one current client is a non-white sole proprietor who leads a flexible team with over 50% minority representation. Neither would ever need to put much thought into presenting a diverse appearance to the world, or increasing their internal diversity: it’s already part of what they do every day.

Other organizations can’t achieve this same result: we have often worked with small firms of only three or four employees, or sole proprietors, and at those scales it’s difficult to show true internal diversity. This type of firm can do two other things through its content choices, however: it can show (1) that it shares concerns about diversity and supports efforts to achieve it and (2) that its clients show diversity. Any size organization can do these things, but it can be both easier and more effective in a smaller business.

These two things can in some ways be described as “words” and “actions.” The words—the content—offer an opportunity for a business to take a stand on this important issue. This might mean a simple and fairly neutral statement supporting diversity. It might mean taking a strong stand in support of a group or event seeking to move forward on an issue of economic, social, or racial justice.

The actions that follow the words can show that a business “puts its money where its mouth is.” This might be quite literal: a business could note how it buys certain supplies and services preferentially from minority owned firms, or that it has donated to or raised funds for a local, regional, or national program that supports diversity. It might mean discussing volunteer efforts the company’s staff has participated in to support these groups or ideas. It can also take a different form: testimonials or endorsements from clients and customers who reflect the diversity of the community. The value of this kind of mutual support in a community should not be underestimated.

For some businesses, accomplishing this goal is easy. For others, it’s extremely difficult: they might exist in a location with very little diversity, or for various reasons find themselves serving a business niche which itself has no diversity. The solution, especially for a firm that is sincere about wanting to support and accomplish change, is not to give up at this point but to seek new opportunities. Those clients and customers are out there, they just haven’t been reached yet.

In a situation where those customers can’t be effectively reached, a firm should still not feel it has reached a dead end. There is no shortage of organizations in any community desperate for support. That support can come in many forms, from financial to volunteer work to in-kind services. The type of organization can vary widely and surprisingly: one might focus on education, another on housing, another on legal services. One group in our area restricts its mission to exposing inner-city youth to outdoor recreational activities and developing leadership skills through their programs; it has a side-effect of connecting youth volunteers from more privileged suburban communities with similar aged peers of less privilege, ultimately benefiting all involved.

Supporting a program of this sort does not make a business more diverse, but it does send an important aspirational message. It also builds trust and respect in the community, laying the groundwork for more effective future action when opportunities become available (or can be created).

A business should not, of course, focus only on content which covers community issues. While a business is part of the community, it exists for an economic purpose. But every successful business understands that community engagement is an important component of its long term success, and it’s an uphill climb for any business to gain the trust of its community without reflecting that community and its values. How much of a business’ content touches on non-business issues is up to each business, and there is no magic formula: it might be 2%, it might be 20%. When that amount is 0%, however, people notice.

At Waltham WordWorks, we’re ready to help our clients develop their community engagement strategies. Understanding, increasing, and displaying diversity can be an important part of that. Using your site’s content can be a simple and effective way to advance this goal. We’re ready to help—get in touch with us to discuss your specific needs and learn what we have to offer.