Act in Solidarity with Hack.Diversity

HIRE A HACK FELLOW

Published in

The Hack.Diversity Movement

3 min readJun 2, 2020

*Our website is currently down for unfortunate, but critically necessary, codebase rebuild. Please see below for how to get in touch.

To the Hack.Diversity Community,

The resiliency, mental, and emotional strength of our Fellows to show up and create value for the Boston innovation ecosystem against the heavy backdrop of racial injustice, police brutality, and pandemic ramifications is ample reason for ALL to act in solidarity for systemic change. It needs to start within our organizations. And it is essential that we let our Black teammates, colleagues, friends, neighbors know we are committed to making that a reality.

If you’re reaching out to us, seeking guidance on what to do, thank you for seeing this community and its value. So what can you DO?

1. HIRE A HACK FELLOW. Email Caitlin Hodge, caitlin@hackdiversity.com

Thank you for messaging us across our Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram platforms. We’d greatly appreciate that if you DO intend to hire a Hack Fellow, to email Caitlin Hodge, caitlin@hackdiversity.com to have a productive conversation.

We appreciate your understanding that our priority this week is first and foremost internal, supporting Fellows mental, emotional, psychological wellness, as well as working with our current employer partners to create safe and inclusive spaces for the Black community. Your emailing Caitlin Hodge at caitlin@hackdiversity.com helps streamline our seeing your outreach.

2. Donations = contributing economic power

If you cannot hire right now, contribute economic power to advance the work we do. Donate to The Hack.Diversity Fund operated by one of our founding partners The Boston Foundation. Your contributions will be used to directly support multi-faceted, holistic programming to enable the professional, personal, and economic success of Hack Fellows.

3. Act WITHIN your organizations

A non-statement is the loudest statement leadership can make. What has been your INTERNAL (read, not necessarily via social media or press releases) messaging to your teams? In Hack’s internal messaging, we specifically recognized the following 1) Racism, police brutality, and the ramifications of COVID-19 are compounded stressors for the Black community. 2) Work should not feel like a burden on top of bigger societal problems, and the team has the explicit right to speak up when work feels like part of the problem. 3) Mental health is essential to the team’s long term success. We’ve let them know they can, and should, take space as needed.
Reach out to your Black employees individually to acknowledge them. Let them know you have their back, and leave the door open for them to come to you if they desire any other support you haven’t initially offered. Know that they do NOT need to respond to that message, nor is it their responsibility to educate you on what is going on right now.
Consider bringing in a third-party facilitator to offer psychological services to help people process. For example, Hack is bringing in a third-party expert to facilitate an internal conversation with Fellows.
Offer the opportunity for staff to share their thoughts anonymously. It can feel safest to share without your professional identity attached to your feelings. If employees are looking for direct/tangible things from their organization, this can be an easier way to voice it. Know that even if you offer the space, leadership and power dynamics may prevent someone from feeling safe to share openly.