First published: June 2020
Last updated: January 2021
We began this company with the intention to create an empowering space for all women, however, we’ve recognized that there is lots of room for growth to create a truly diverse and inclusive space for the BIPOC women in this community.
“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.” – Angela Davis
We’ve listened and have had many conversations with ourselves, our team members, and our community and we’re using these conversations as a seed and catalyst for growth and change.
We believe that diversity and inclusion are more than just words or nice sentiments. It’s about action: how we build our team, cultivate our community and create a company that welcomes and represents everyone.
It’s especially important to us that words are not just empty promises or in-transparent actions so we’re sharing our action plan for you to stay updated on the initiatives we’ve implemented, as well as upcoming new initiatives.
This page and action plan will be updated on a quarterly basis.
Our action plan has been structured around awareness, amplification and action which we hope will be a structure for lasting change and sustained inclusivity. The core areas we’ve evaluated are:
- Ourselves
- Our Brand
- Our Team
- Our Community
- Our Products
As leaders and educators, we believe that it’s our duty to be strong allies for our BIPOC community. We’re committed to doing better to make sure you feel heard, supported, acknowledged and amplified and we’re always open to hearing your feedback which you can share by emailing us at social@bucketlistbombshells.com.
Below you will find a detailed list of initiatives that have been implemented, along with upcoming initiatives currently underway.
We know we have a long way to go and much more learning to do, so this is not an exhaustive list of initiatives. We will continue to update and add to this action plan as we grow and learn through this journey. To the BIPOC women in our community, we are here to stand with you, to take action now and in the long haul to be more inclusive, celebrate diversity and make this community a true representation of what it is: a group of genuine, powerful and resilient women of all colors.
With love,
Cassie & Shay
Founders of Bucketlist Bombshells
2020 Initiatives Implemented:
We recognize that the work is never done so, many of these initiatives will be ongoing to integrate them into the fabric of who we are as leaders, our company and our community to effect long-term change and inclusivity.
OURSELVES
Doing the work to uncover our implicit biases: We are continuing to ask ourselves the tough questions and get into the layers of the gaps in our experiences to change our behavior as individuals and as leaders to become stronger allies.
Here are a few that we’ve completed and/or are working through: Fearless Conversations Workshop Series hosted by Fearless Futures, Show Up And Serve by Trudi Lebron, Spiritual Activism 101 and 102 by Rachel Ricketts, Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad, How to Be an Anti Racist and Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi.
Speaking and attending inclusive conferences only: We are not attending or accepting speaking engagements at conferences that are not inclusive of women and BIPOC speakers. In an effort to open the conversation to effect change, we are requesting conference hosts to share their action plan for ensuring diversity and inclusion at their event.
Diversifying the leaders we look to and learn from: In the process of doing the work, we found a diversity gap in the leaders we learned from and followed. Along with being educated by BIPOC leaders, we are actively expanding our network to include a diversity of voices, perspectives and cultures.
OUR TEAM
Utilizing a Blind Hiring system: We recognize that part of creating an inclusive community starts with building a more diverse team. This is why we’ve made improvements to our hiring process by implementing a Blind Hiring system. This means that we filter applications strictly based on skill and qualification for the role based on our applicants written answers to remove any bias. Only our final qualified candidates are evaluated based on their video application and interview for a strong fit for the role – regardless of race, gender or ethnicity.
Requiring and providing diversity and inclusion resources and training to every new team member: We are focused on providing education to our team by requiring each new team member to go through a diversity and inclusion training within our onboarding process.
OUR COMMUNITY
Amplifying the Black women in our community through a 4-month blog post series: Our mission has always been to empower women to chase after their entrepreneurial dreams. With a diverse community of our own, we created an incredible round-up series featuring some of these women and small businesses from or recommended by our community that you can support now and in the future (from skincare products, to podcasters, designers, finance experts and more). Plus, it’s another way we can use our platform and all do our part towards bridging the equity gap and supporting small female-owned businesses.
Fostering a safe and open space for conversations around diversity and inclusion. We believe that it’s our duty as community leaders to create a safe, open and inclusive space for our BIPOC community members. Your voices will not be muted, posts and comments will not be deleted around this conversation in any of our groups. *This is with the exception that they cannot contain profanity and hatred towards another member which will not be tolerated. If you’re a BIPOC woman in this community, we want you to know this: We are standing here alongside you. We’re here for you. We see you, and you are always welcome here. We are committed to doing better to make sure you feel heard, supported, acknowledged and amplified.
Listening to your feedback: If you’d like to share your personal story with us like some BIPOC women in this community have already done, we are absolutely here to listen in full confidence of your privacy. You can email us at social@bucketlistbombshells.com. We take your comments, suggestions and feedback to heart as we continue to create a diverse and inclusive community.
OUR BRAND
Muted all of our social media, blog posts and paid advertising content to amplify the Black Lives Matter Movement in June 2020. We instead used our platform to amplify the voices of the Black women in this community and beyond.
Donated to The Loveland Foundation to provide financial assistance to Black women and girls seeking therapy: We know financial assistance can be incredibly helpful to organizations that are providing access and resources to communities of color. As an extension of our current giving back program, we have also provided financial support to The Loveland Foundation.
On-going monthly financial support to the Kopila Valley School in Nepal: We believe in breaking the cycle of poverty through education. Since 2017, using a portion of our profits, we’ve partnered with BlinkNow to provide an education for at-risk girls at the Kopila Valley School in Nepal. Our financial support also supports at-risk Nepali women through the Kopila Women’s Center by giving them the tools and resources they need to be emotionally empowered and financially independent.
Changed the name of our Facebook group. We are deeply sorry for our insensitivity and disregard to the indigenous community for the word “tribe” used previously to describe and name our group. For that reason, in June of 2020 we renamed our group to “Bucketlist Bombshells Community”.
Continually ensuring that our website is a true representation of our diverse community: It’s incredibly important to us that our BIPOC community feels seen and represented through our website. We have made additions to include more diversity in our community images and stock photography, as well as adding a Diversity & Inclusion Statement on every page to clearly communicate our commitment and message that all women are welcome here.
OUR PRODUCTS
Clearly representing our diverse student community on all our Bucketlist Bombshells Academy™ course enrollment pages and new course content: We’re so grateful for the feedback that we received in our student community wanting to see more success stories from women of color in our courses. We’ve made changes to include more diversity on all our enrollment pages by featuring our students of color and adding a statement to clearly communicate that all women are welcome in our courses. We have also added a diverse range of stock photo imagery inside our new course content for our BIPOC community to feel seen in our educational content, something that should have been done from the beginning.
2021 Upcoming Initiatives:
The following initiatives are being actively worked on by us and our team to integrate within the next 6 months.
OURSELVES
Enrolling in a long-term program to do the work to become stronger leaders of our diverse community. Our personal goal is to understand the gaps in our own experiences and knowledge so that we can be better leaders for our team, our students and our community. As educators of new business owners, we believe that we have a responsibility to do our part to bring awareness to students who may also have their own gaps, and show the importance of integrating and prioritizing diversity and inclusion in their own businesses from the start.
OUR BRAND
Diversifying our giving back program to bridge the equity gap through a long-term partnership: We will be diversifying our giving back program by adding a long-term partnership with an organization that uplifts women of color by bridging the equity gap focusing on education. If you know of an amazing program doing this work that you’d personally like to recommend, please email us at social@bucketlistbombshells.com.
Using our platform to celebrate, amplify and bring awareness of the BIPOC community: We believe that it’s important to use our platform and our voice to celebrate, amplify and bring awareness of the BIPOC community including historical events, leaders of change and significant movements. Our intention is not only to bring awareness but also to start thought-provoking conversations within our community to create change.
Measuring Change: We’re committed to bridging the equity gap and creating a more diverse and inclusive company. To do this, we recognize that measuring change is important to understand the effectiveness of our initiatives. We will be diving deep into understanding and developing ways to measure and provide clear and tangible results.
OUR TEAM
Investing in a long-term program as a team to be stronger allies and support system to our diverse community: We believe that creating a diverse and inclusive company starts from the inside out which is why we will be taking part in a long-term program with our team to uncover biases and open conversations around diversity to cultivate team members who are strong anti-racist allies.
Bringing in a long-term diversity and inclusion expert. As a company, we know that we can do better to integrate diversity into all aspects of what we do by bringing in a long-term diversity and inclusion expert to consult with and help to improve our long-term initiatives.
OUR COMMUNITY
Hiring Community Ignitors for the Bucketlist Bombshells Community to better represent the collective voice and amplify a diversity of experiences: With a community of over 20,000 women, we strongly feel that it’s time to create space for other women to cultivate and lead this community alongside us with the goal of bringing a diversity in voices, perspectives and experiences in entrepreneurship and remote work.
OUR PRODUCTS
More heavily integrate diversity into our Bucketlist Bombshells Academy™ courses: Our courses currently feature a few mini projects that represent diversity by showcasing people of color in positions of power. However, we know this isn’t enough to truly represent diversity in the work that we do. Our goal is to increase the number of mini projects that feature BIPOC women by 75% by the end of 2021.
Offering a yearly full-ride scholarship program to enroll in the Bucketlist Bombshells Academy™: This scholarship opportunity will focus on closing the equity gap for women of color who want to enroll in the Bucketlist Bombshells Academy™ but can’t afford the financial commitment, as well as offering scholarships to other women struggling through financial hardships who have a strong desire to start their own online business.
Updating our courses to incorporate more awareness around diversity and inclusion to new small business owners: As educators of new business owners, we believe that we have a responsibility to do our part to bring awareness to students who may also have their own gaps, and show the importance of integrating and prioritizing diversity and inclusion in their own businesses from the start.
