What We Do

Investing in Ethnicity was launched in 2016 in response to UK employers openly admitting that there wasn’t enough focus on the ethnicity agenda in the workplace. Our first mission was to use our contacts to research what was being done already and figure out which organisations were leading the way.

In our research stage, we found that when companies made a public pledge, action followed. Therefore we encouraged CEOs to publicly pledge their investment in ethnic and racial inclusion. The social media campaign reached over 500K people through the week's launch. The campaign was covered in The Times, Guardian, City AM, The Voice, Independent and Huffington Post.

We held an inaugural conference with 184 organisations attending. Topics in the conference includes BAME Leadership & inclusive training, best practice and ‘Let’s Talk’ sessions. We were encouraged by the ideas generated just by bringing people together.

Investing in Ethnicity took a further step with the backing of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Governance and Inclusive Leadership (GAIL). We developed the time-efficient benchmarking process called the Maturity Matrix which equips and encourages businesses to progress the ethnicity agenda by sharing best practice recommendations. In the first year we saw 52 organisations complete the Matrix with a further 30 using the tool in 2018.

The Government closed a consultation on Ethnicity Pay Reporting in 2019, which had posed questions about what ethnicity pay information should be reported by employers to allow for meaningful action. It’s widely anticipated that much like Gender Pay Gap Reporting, Ethnicity Pay Reporting will become mandatory as a result.

We held our first Ethnicity Awards, bringing community, charities, MPs, press, public figures and business together to celebrate those making a difference in business, politics, and culture. Winners included Emeli Sande, Marcus Rashford and business leaders.