Setting a high bar
If you were to ask tech companies to disclose their DEI progress since last year, most would blush. Not Affirm. Affirm is setting a high bar for DEI transparency and reporting—one that other companies should emulate.
Affirm recently released its 2020 Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Report. I encourage you to read it—but if you’re short on time, below are my favorite highlights.
The report goes on to list specific things the company did in response to the pandemic, inequality, and Black Lives Matter:
As part of our Affirm Cares employee foundation, we started a fund called the Communities of Color Advocacy Fund, specifically to support the Black community. We raised $300,000 (including a $100,000 donation from our CEO, Max Levchin) and donated the funds to organizations chosen by our BLACK@ ERG: the Equal Justice Initiative, Black Star Project, The Prevention Institute, and the NAACP.
Affirm CEO and BLACK@ executive sponsor, Max Levchin, spoke to BLACK@ members in two sessions over the summer to listen to their thoughts and ideas for action. From this session, we learned that BLACK@ wanted more Black Affirmers in leadership, and to keep current leadership more informed on DEI matters. Based on this input, in 2021 we will begin quarterly meetings with our senior leaders updating them on DEI metrics, programming, events, and future plans.
Last June, we asked all Affirmers to submit their ideas for how Affirm could combat systemic racism in America. We received over 100 amazing ideas and in August our Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee (outlined below) chose five of them to push forward:
Bring on more underrepresented merchants to our platform
Provide extra support to our underrepresented merchants
Uplift formerly incarcerated individuals by partnering with external organizations
Expand employee volunteer options and volunteer days
Publish election guides for the November 3, 2020 General Election, and advocate to have election day off for employees
Source: 2020 Affirm DEI Report. In 2019, the male/female split was 58%/42% so the gender gap marginally worsened, but ENG/PROD saw a 12.5% improvement in female representation.
On p. 22-26 of the report, Affirm goes on to list another dozen or so initiatives completed in 2020 including partnerships with The Mom Project and Nextplay, DEI employee training, donating 68 laptops, and de-biasing the interview process.
The company also diversified its board with 3 new board members:
In an age of ephemeral attention and diminishing intent, it is nice to see a company leading the DEI charge from the front.