Our commitment to community
A letter from our CEO
When we started Crescendo, we knew we would have to do things differently. Quickly we noticed that startup culture was at odds with DEI - again and again, industry leaders would tell us we were too small to plan for diversity, too early to think about social impact. Despite this, we invested early in DEI and built impact into our business model; for us, business is an opportunity to do good in the world by lifting the community with us as we grow.
Built for the community, by the community
Diversity is a core tenet of what we do as a DEI-centric company. For us, this is not just about hiring employees and contractors who look, think, and act differently from one another. It's about hiring people who truly represent the community we are building for (and with).
As our product offering grows globally to reach tens of thousands of new learners worldwide, so does our company grow by hiring people based in the new countries we are serving. As we incorporate new learning themes in the Crescendo Library, we directly support the groups represented in the content.
Our Pride content, for example, was created and curated by LGBTQ+ creators around the world, and our new content for France, Germany, and India, are all created and curated by people in those countries.
We want Crescendo learners to see themselves reflected authentically in the stories shared within our Crescendo Moments and be proud to add their own experiences in conversation with their peers at work. It's about opening the doors to new perspectives and doing so in a way that honours the natural diversity of our global community.
Choosing local suppliers, reinvesting revenues
A business is an opportunity to support other businesses. By choosing to spend our money with local suppliers and fellow minority-owned companies, we bolster the local economy and redistribute the wealth to underrepresented business owners.
One example of this is how in 2020, during a time of great distress for our community and our world, we introduced our anti-racism offerings as a way to support our partners and our users in living their commitments to anti-racism. As part of this, we committed to reinvesting the proceeds from these offerings into the communities that they are representing. In 2020, since the focus was on anti-Black racism, our proceeds were used in the following ways:
Hiring Black content creators and commissioning work from Black artists for inclusion into our content library
Engaging Black DEI professionals and freelancers as reviewing partners
Contributing to organizations dedicated to Black wellness (The Okra Project, Freedom Schools via BLM Toronto, and Black Voters Matter Fund.)
As our community's needs grow and change, we will continue to evolve our focal areas for investment, making an effort to choose local and underrepresented partners whenever we can.
Partnering thoughtfully
We strive to build Crescendo as a value-first and values-first company - that is, we focus on creating high value for our customers and our community, and we never compromise on staying true to our values. This is true not only in how we build our product, but how we build our extended team as well. Crescendo is fortunate to have a wonderful group of highly engaged experts who have joined us as investors and advisors. Each and every one of these people who has joined us on this journey contributes in their own way to our vision of equity for all, in all workplaces.
At Crescendo, we are on a mission to equip every professional with the practices of cultural competence and inclusion. Every member of our community contributes in ways large and small to this mission - thank you for being part of it. Together, we're changing the business world for the better.
Sage Franch
CEO and Co-Founder
