If we could reimagine the modern workplace to be designed by and for people of color, what would that look like? And could we build it?

In the company we built, we were determined to create an organization that resisted the status quo of mainstream business practices. We envisioned a company where Black and Brown people could thrive rather than survive.

We found that administering a program for Black and Latinx young people interning in the tech industry taught us great lessons about how to build hiring processes, performance management systems, benefit programs, etc., that were harmful to people (of all races). And we used the Fellows Program as a learning lab for our theories of change about organizational design.

This proved to be quite challenging, as the nonprofit lives within capitalism and is accountable to funders that may not share a commitment to worker sustainability, but we did our best within the limitations we had. We share some of our policies and procedures in the “How We Worked” section of this website, alongside descriptions of some of the challenges that we hoped to address with those policies and the iteration processes we undertook as we learned and grew the organization.

[Please consult with your own legal counsel prior to adopting or implementing any of the strategies or policies shared within these archives]