Millions of people are marching on the streets around the world. For the Black lives that have been lost to police brutality. For those who are afraid they’re going to be next. For their loved ones. For justice. For history to finally stop repeating itself.
It’s been two weeks since the killing of George Floyd. Two months since Breonna Taylor. Three since Ahmaud Arbery. And it’s been too long since we held a mirror up to society, ourselves included.
Systemic racism is not unique to the US—it’s everywhere in the world. White supremacy is so deeply rooted in our cultures, societies, and workplaces that those of us with privilege need to actively work to examine our biases and dismantle the structures that perpetuate racism.
WeTransfer recently became a B Corp because we strive to have a positive impact on our environment, our community, and the wider world. We've championed external causes like climate change, gun reform, and ending crushing medical debt, and we have never shied away from telling stories from artists in BIPOC communities around the world on our editorial platform, WePresent. But we realized that we were stopping short of actually building that promise into the fiber of our business and the way that we run our organization. And that was wrong. Telling stories simply isn’t enough.
We need to do better at looking internally, especially when it comes to the diversity within our own management team and the wider organization.
We cannot simply commit to combating racism when people are watching. We must examine our privilege, demand better of ourselves, and hold ourselves accountable to our promises, even if the attention has shifted elsewhere.
This is a time to listen, learn, show up, and do better.
Ending racism is not going to happen overnight. But we will start having these conversations, educating ourselves, and taking action. We need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
To do better, we must start with ourselves.
We have put together a diverse team to look into how we can create meaningful change within WeTransfer, and will be hiring a third-party organization to consult on concrete actions we can take. In the meantime, we made it a company-wide objective to have underrepresented groups in the tech industry constitute a majority of our organization by the end of 2021. This is applied at any level in the organization—executive team included.
To foster a better working environment, we are going to provide training on how to actively combat racism, examine our hiring and recruitment practices to make sure they are inclusive, and encourage our employees to take the time they need to volunteer, protest, and focus on their mental health.
We listen.
We handed over last week’s episode of our Influence podcast to Andrew Simons, director of leadership at Grist, and Brentin Mock, staff writer at City Lab, to discuss their views on this moment in history.
We learn.
WePresent will house a series of initiatives meant to spark conversation and drive action, starting with a powerful message shared by Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. We’ve also created a resource list for employees to take action and a personal development budget for books and online education on this topic.
We amplify.
We are donating $1 million worth of advertising impressions on WeTransfer.com to organizations for racial justice around the world. We started with a platform takeover in the US featuring The Bail Project, The Movement for Black Lives, Black Futures Lab, Campaign Zero alongside content from WWFM.
On top of that, WeTransfer will double the donations made by our employees toward movements and organizations that support social justice.
We know we still have a long way to go. Our commitment to being a more responsible tech company is an ongoing journey to do better for our people—whether they are our communities, our clients, or our employees.