AGENCY OF THE DECADE.

One Booth.
Now More Than Ever.

An Open Letter to our Clients, Colleagues and Friends of M Booth and M Booth Health

Today we make public our renewed efforts to foster greater diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) across M Booth and M Booth Health.

While we have made important strides in recent years, we are digging in to understand why our DE&I efforts of the past have not delivered as we had hoped. We recognize that systemic barriers have kept us from creating a workplace where Black colleagues are consistently hired, promoted, retained and feel included. For example, in 2019, 36% of new hires were people of color; however, just 7% were Black. Currently 23% of our workforce is made up of diverse communities and breaks out as follows: 11% Asian, 6% Latinx, 3% Black, 1% Pacific Islander, 2% two or more races. We want to, can do and will do much better.

These are the actions we have taken to date:

We have retained a Black-owned and founded consultancy that is partnering with us to create a three-year strategic plan with immediate and long-term measurable outcomes to make our organization a place where BIPOC employees feel safe, valued, welcomed and included.

We are strengthening our efforts to recruit and retain Black and diverse talent to ensure more diverse representation in management and leadership positions including BIPOC colleagues at the most senior level.

• We are actively reviewing hiring profiles, ad strategy, and interview questions and procedures to ensure that we recruit from a much wider and more diverse applicant pool.
• We are redoubling our efforts to recruit from HBCUs, and from diverse colleges and universities across the country. In addition, we will continue to recruit through our sponsorship of organizations like Out4Undergrad, a nationwide college program for LGBTQ+ students, many of whom are Black or POC and often from HBCUs, and COOP, a program that targets NY and SF grads that come from diverse backgrounds.
• We are assessing professional societies and informal groups to reach diverse professionals; implementing a networking strategy to increase visibility and participation from senior leadership and build relationships that attract and retain talent.
• Since many of our entry-level hires come from our intern pool, we are pledging that a minimum of 35% of each intern class will be people of color.

We are requiring ongoing all-agency and senior training on systemic racism and inclusion and will implement accountability mechanisms that track culture change and participation. We will address growth path planning for our Black colleagues and a mentorship program, and evaluate benefits to assist BIPOC colleagues related to racism.

We are reviewing and evaluating staff compensation to ensure parity, and setting standards for equitable pay for third party talent and client commitments. We will also seek to partner with our clients on their DE&I efforts.

We are committed to supporting Black justice and anti-racism organizations and have just contributed $25,000 via an all-agency fundraising effort to three national organizations - Equal Justice Initiative, Black Women’s Health Imperative, and Juxtaposition Arts - all doing important work in the field. In addition, we have just launched a special agency team that is providing pro-bono communications support to BIPOC small businesses.