Measuring what Matters: Resources to help you track progress towards DEI

At Cowboy Ventures, we know diverse teams perform better and we are excited about the opportunity to make our workplaces more inclusive for everyone.

Earlier this year, we took a step back as a team to think about how we could better support portfolio companies as they work to create teams and workplace cultures to be proud of. We know you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so we worked with HR and DEI experts to create template slides for portfolio companies to use at board meetings to identify, track, and report metrics related to DEI.

We were so excited when we started to see the slides show up into board decks and create a space for conversations that might not otherwise happen. We’re now even more excited to share these resources with any company that wants to get started or improve the way they are tracking their progress.

Here’s a deck with all of the resources. In it, you will find:

• Template Google surveys to copy & modify to collect data
• Template slides to share DEI metrics (one for early-stage companies and one for mid-stage+ companies) with your board, at staff meetings and/or all-hands
• Recommendations for additional DEI metrics to track
• Resources for additional tools and consulting services

Also, if you’re looking to automate a lot of this data collection and presentation, we worked with Cowboy portfolio company Charthop to create a DEI product that does a lot of the work for you!

Please feel free to use and share these resources. If you have any feedback, don’t hesitate to reach out to jomayra@cowboy.vc.

And if you are a CEO that would like to commit to adding DEI metrics to your regular board materials, we ask you please fill out this form. We will add you to a growing list of CEOs who are committed to making the tech ecosystem more equitable. We also hope this will help your company attract great talent, as candidates will know you’re committed to building a more inclusive workplace. (We will add names to the bottom of this article, as we receive responses)

There is a lot of progress to be made when it comes to diversity and inclusion across the entire tech ecosystem, including funders, founders, and the employees that make up this growing sector. If you’re interested in learning more, please check out All Raise and also our resources to help new investors break into venture capital.

Lastly, a very special thank you to Aubrey Blanche, Merritt Anderson, Bari Williams, Emily Kramer, Alicia Burt, and many others who reviewed and provided feedback on these resources.

At your service,

Jomayra & Aileen on behalf of Team Cowboy.

CEOs committed to adding DEI metrics to their BOD materials:

[to be updated throughout early 2021]