How to Structure Your Approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is rightly a priority considered increasingly early in companies’ journeys. Whether it’s the make-up of the advisory board, the earliest employees or the approaches made to customers, DEI should be a central consideration.

Not only is a thorough approach to DEI the right thing to do, broadened diversity within businesses leads to improved business outcomes, as demonstrated in a range of research papers, including McKinsey’s ‘Diversity Wins’. Indeed, our annual Edtech funding report considered founder gender composition in 2021 Edtech funding for the first time - the data shows that mixed gender founding teams were more likely to raise the largest rounds than single gender teams.

Of course, DEI covers a much broader range of demographics than simply gender, such as ethnicity- we will consider a range of demographics in this document.

Perspectives and considerations will be divided into 1) Hiring, 2) Culture and 3) Feedback and Measurement. But first, we will run through some quick definitions.

The following definitions are taken back from M13’s work with Lifelong Labs, which we have applied in this guide.

This document is structured as following:

1. Top level considerations

2. introductions and definitions

3. DEI in hiring

4. DEI in culture

5. Feedback and measurement

6. 10 questions to help you think about your approach to DEI issues within your startup

7. Helpful resources

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We hope that you find it useful!