Several individuals and businesses these days are focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or DEI. Statistical data stands testimony to how significantly the popularity of this term has risen in the last few years. Ever since the start of 2020 to the present date, the popularity and significance of DEI has increased approximately by a whopping 700%!
From family-owned Escape Room Palm Springs to small-scale clothing ventures, small businesses, in particular, are looking at these factors. Through this article, let us find out what are the 10 best resources that you can work with to enhance your DEI efforts. But before you check out the 10 resources that will help you improve your DEI efforts, first let us find out what DEI is.
What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)?
To put it simply, diversity refers to the accumulation of differences, equity talks about treating everyone fairly, and inclusion refer to ensuring everyone feels welcome. Therefore, for your business to exercise diversity, you must ensure that your brand welcomes a greater diversity of users irrespective of any barrier.
To ensure there is equity in your business, you must check that everyone has equal access, opportunities, and support for your brand. Finally, for inclusion, you need to ensure that everyone feels a sense of welcome and belongingness from your brand.
10 DEI Resources for small businesses
Here are the 10 useful resources that will allow your brand to enhance and improve its DEI efforts:
- Allyens’ Testimonials Page
Allyens is a marketing company whose entire website can act as a helpful resource for your business. You can even check out the case studies page present on its website to find excellent instances of how DEI and marketing goals can be connected. The website can also offer viewers extensive examples of conversational copywriting too!
- Inclusive Language of LinkedIn for Entrepreneurs’ Pocket data
The marketers’ pocket guide for LinkedIn’s inclusive language can act as a powerful resource to assist your small business with its DEI needs. It will help you incorporate and increase the range and inclusiveness offered by your brand. With the help of this guide, you can know about:
- Definition of inclusive language and its vitality
- Varied forms of this language
- Some common forms of exclusionary language and useful alternatives to make it inclusive
- Accessibilitytest.org
Accessibilitytest.org can help you understand the accessibility of your website. It runs a detailed test to evaluate your website. It mainly uses four kinds of testers, namely, AudioEye, WAVE, axe, and HTML_CodeSniffer. You can test single pages as well as your entire site with this helpful tool. It will also offer you specific recommendations in the areas like:
- Missing alt text for images
- No headers, etc.
- The Ethical Move
It is an organization that aims to combat various forms of manipulative marketing strategies and enhance the transparency of brands. It will offer your brand a badge after you have taken their pledge to join the cause. Head on to their website to take the pledge and receive your badge!
- The Inclusive Marketing Toolkit by Google
The inclusive marketing toolkit of Google has all the necessary components that you can ever think of! Its varied components will help you inculcate greater inclusiveness into your marketing and hiring process and improve your company culture! It also offers you a list of different marginalized groups and what you can do to improve your brand’s inclusiveness for each.
- The Inclusive Marketing Examples blog post by Impact
It covers approximately 15 different campaigns hosted by top brands to improve inclusiveness. You can check out these blog posts to gain some inspiration and ideas on how your venture can improve its inclusive nature!
- The Diversity Column of Drum
The Drum is a globally renowned marketing news website and magazine. The diversity column of this brand portrays various leaders, creatives, and influencers who belong to marginalized communities. It helps in creating greater awareness and identifying ways to combat exclusiveness.
- The DEI checklist of Berkeley
It is a DEI checklist put up by the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business. Though it primarily focuses on big businesses, it can even be of use to you! It will help you understand and identify the gaps in your DEI plan and take action to erase them.
- The DEI policy template by SHRM
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has its own DEI policy template that can help you make one for your business. You will have to modify it to suit your culture, industry, and practices, and voila! However, with every new policy that you create, make sure to run a detailed review by your legal counsel to identify errors if any.
- The Accessible Social Checklist
Accessible Social, a free resource hub also offers a great checklist that you can check out. You will find approximately 23 boxes on the first page of this checklist, of which some are:
- Usage of hashtags in moderation
- To remove any emoji from the middle of words
- Putting multi-word hashtags in Camel Case
As the awareness of DEI continues to grow, several brands both big and small are on the search for ways to make their brand more inclusive than they are. If you are also worried about your brand’s DEI efforts, check out these 10 useful resources and do your part in making your brand more inclusive.
Sources:
11 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Resources for Small Businesses
10 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Resources for Small Businesses
