Black Lives Matter

Like so many in the Twin Cities and around the world, our team at Bell­mont Part­ners has com­mit­ted to doing bet­ter as indi­vid­u­als and as an agency to con­front racism and inequities. After George Floyd’s death, we’ve been tak­ing a dif­fi­cult, long-over­due look at our­selves. We know we have a long way to go, but we’re com­mit­ted to tak­ing action­able steps to address our bias­es and priv­i­lege and evolve the ways we think and act.

As we con­tin­ue to lis­ten and have vital, often tough, con­ver­sa­tions about diver­si­ty, inclu­sion and racial injus­tice with our col­leagues, fam­i­lies, clients and com­mu­ni­ty, we’ll be doing the fol­low­ing to hold our­selves accountable:

• Over the past two weeks, our team mem­bers have been vol­un­teer­ing, attend­ing protests and donat­ing mon­ey or items to com­mu­ni­ties and busi­ness­es who have been impact­ed by recent events.
• We’re assess­ing our agency’s process­es when it comes to diver­si­ty, inclu­sion and anti-racism, mak­ing nec­es­sary changes, set­ting mea­sur­able goals and objec­tives and devel­op­ing tac­ti­cal plans to achieve them.
• Our team will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in uncon­scious bias train­ing, and read­ing and dis­cussing impor­tant works, start­ing with How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi.
• We’re con­tin­u­ing to sup­port our clients that are work­ing to make a dif­fer­ence, from the Uptown Association’s inspir­ing mur­al project to Sec­ond Har­vest Heartland’s crit­i­cal increased food dis­tri­b­u­tion in neigh­bor­hoods hit hard by the recent unrest, as well as sev­er­al others.
• At the same time, we know that being a help­ful resource also means rec­og­niz­ing when we aren’t the right group to con­sult, refer­ring clients to indi­vid­u­als or orga­ni­za­tions who are in a bet­ter posi­tion to con­sult on com­mu­ni­ca­tions about race and inequities. To do that, we’re com­mit­ting to mak­ing a step-by-step, mea­sur­able effort to diver­si­fy our team and our work and expand­ing our net­works to con­nect with more diverse voic­es and BIPOC-owned busi­ness­es, includ­ing full-time employ­ees, free­lancers, part­ners and prospec­tive talent.
• We’re dou­bling down on encour­ag­ing our team mem­bers to use paid time through our Bell­mont Gives Back ini­tia­tive to sup­port anti-racism and pro-diver­si­ty efforts, includ­ing an increased pro bono com­mit­ment to com­pa­nies or orga­ni­za­tions that cham­pi­on those efforts.

And as we move for­ward, we’re con­tin­u­ing to lis­ten to and learn from the voic­es and sto­ries of peo­ple who deserve our atten­tion and sup­port. While we know we’ll make mis­takes along the way, we com­mit to devot­ing the nec­es­sary time, ener­gy and resources for us all to improve, gain per­spec­tive and find a bet­ter path for­ward, because we absolute­ly believe that Black lives matter.