What started as a trial for a single eLearning course, eventually turned into an organization that has responded to the call for action that so many organizations across the country have needed. The Diversity Movement, or TDM is a diversity, equity, and inclusion company that provides solutions for business transformation. Their experienced team of professionals has extensive backgrounds in business, journalism, human rights, and data analytics. Substantial got a chance to sit down with some of the dynamic ladies who are helping to create a strong footprint for TDM and the solutions it provides to create better workplace experiences.
We were fortunate enough to meet with Jackie Ferguson, Head of Content and Programming; Shelley Willingham, Vice President of Business Strategy and Partnerships; Kristie Davis, VP of Operations; and Melanie Sanders, Senior Consultant. These ladies are all dynamic in their own right, but as a whole they make up an even more dynamic team at The Diversity Movement.
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SM: What sets TDM apart from other DE&I organizations?
JF:From my perspective – and I’m sure that the four of us would have slightly different answers on the question – but from my perspective, The Diversity Movement is a group of entrepreneurs, business executives, and instructors that understand what’s required for organizational success. So we leverage our content, our products and programming to create customized solutions for cultures of belonging that lead to successful outcomes for our clients.
SM: Tell me a little bit about some of the signature programs that are offered through TDM.
SW: What I love about the way we show up for our clients is that we can help them wherever they are in their journey. So from consulting, to training, to live workshops, micro video platform digital learning, full course platforms, blogs, white papers – so much great, amazing content that our content team puts out. We have a variety of ways that we’re able to help move the needle, as relates to DEI, and again, meet people where they are and understand that people learn and retain information differently.
SM: Tell me,what is the importance of diversity and
inclusion in regards to how corporations are able to use this to market to diverse org audiences,
SW: I think the challenge with programming is that it’s traditionally kind of been housed in HR, and it didn’t have much more than an HR function. But as much money as it takes to run a marketing and advertising campaign, you want to ensure that what you’re doing is actually going to benefit the organization as a whole and won’t just be seen as window dressing. And what we see a lot of organizations or brands do is they launch full scale diversity recruiting, or diversity marketing campaigns. But internally, that message doesn’t align with what their employees are experiencing, or even what their consumers experience when they go into a retail location. So it’s very important to connect the dots through all of your business endeavors, not just HR, but with marketing, sales and operations, and customer service to ensure that the message is consistent throughout and that you’re living and walking the values that you say you have when you’re presenting something to somebody to an external audience in an advertising or marketing campaign.