The mission of Greater Public is to ensure the long-term wellbeing of public and independent media. Our mission of public service is achieved only when we serve all communities of the American public. Historically, we have not served or represented all communities. This did not happen by accident but as a result of policies, practices and strategies aimed at serving and representing a largely white, formally-educated, wealthy segment of the American public.
As leaders and innovators, Greater Public strives to fulfill our public service mission to serve and represent all Americans using equitable and inclusive policies, practices and strategies.
Our Values
Greater Public is committed to the values of:
- Accountability: We assume responsibility for our actions, products, decisions, and policies, and will be transparent about our actions and goals in order to invite feedback.
- Authenticity: We practice humility and stay in a learning relationship with one another, both within and outside of the organization.
- Inclusiveness: We create space in our processes and interactions for deep listening, input, and feedback.
- Empowerment: We support and applaud the unique strengths brought by different individuals. We encourage ourselves to take risks and understand failure as essential parts of meaningful growth.
- Community: We see ourselves as in relationship with others, and we value activities that serve to cultivate those relationships.
We aspire to create an equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist workplace in which the whole, authentic self of each member of our team is welcomed and affirmed, regardless of age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, and perspective.
Generally, people want to be dealt with as individuals, not categories or labels. However, there are times when we need to talk about a group by name. Therefore, we’ve found consensus in this lexicon of terms. These terms are subject to evolve and we invite people to communicate with us about terms that should be revised.
Our Actions
We center diversity, equity, and inclusion at the core of our work, and measure our progress toward stated goals.
Greater Public CEO, Joyce MacDonald, leads our DEI work. She, along with three quarters of the Greater Public senior leadership team, members of staff, and Equity and Inclusion Advisor Sway Steward, have been meeting weekly since 2020 to evaluate progress toward our stated DEI goals for the year.
In 2021, Greater Public partnered with Swafia Ames, Managing Director, People, Strategy & Inclusion at Brighter Strategies, to discern our stated values, formalize our lexicon, and capture our annual DEI goals. We’ve also implemented a tracking system and weekly dashboards to help everyone in our organization view our annual goals and activity toward those goals.
Greater Public Board of Directors
Greater Public’s board of directors serves up to two 3-year terms. Board candidates are proposed by a nominating committee based on how their skills and experience complement and expand the capacity of the current board, and directors are elected by a full board vote. Measurable DEI progress is in the CEO goals and regularly reported to the board and the board receives updates on GP DEI activities.
Greater Public Staff
In 2024 we benchmarked Greater Public staff demographics:
Equitable Hiring
Greater Public is a small organization that experiences low turnover in our staff and contract positions. We see this as a demonstration of positive work culture and job satisfaction. But it also means our goal of diversified representation within our organization is likely to advance slowly.
With this in mind, we consistently seek ways to bring additional representation and perspective into Greater Public in the short term. In 2023 we had the opportunity to hire a new staff position for the first time since 2019. We worked with Brevity & Wit to review the equity of our internal recruitment and hiring process, and implemented several changes:
- The job posting was crafted to appeal to a broad range of candidates. It included specific references to encourage applications from individuals with non-standard experience and highlighted that women and people of color are often more hesitant to apply for roles where they don’t meet all the requirements.
- In order to expand the candidate pool, we did not prioritize public media experience. Public media tends to be older and less diverse than the population at large. By not requiring public media experience, we attracted a more diverse initial group.
- For the first time we added optional questions to the initial application to gather demographic data about our candidate pool. The recruiting effort yielded strong results, with 47% of applicants identifying as BIPOC.
- We implemented a structured interview process with bias mitigation techniques. For example, candidates were given a minute of downtime after introductions, during which time the interview panel members reflected individually on their initial impressions and reviewed a list of implicit biases, including in-group bias, the halo and horn effect, racial bias, accent bias, and several others. The panel was instructed to be skeptical of favorable first impressions and to give those with less favorable impressions a chance to succeed.
This approach will be used as a model for future recruitment efforts, ensuring that diverse perspectives are considered and valued throughout the organization.
Inclusive Onboarding
We know that if inclusive hiring practices succeed in attracting talent, an intentional onboarding process and ongoing support is crucial to ensuring the long-term retention of new employees. When our new staff person accepted her position in 2024, we developed a new onboarding process that sought to emphasize inclusion and connection. We created a plan of education for our new hire about the public media industry and business and added time to receive feedback. The onboarding process laid out what the learning would be in advance, when each new task in the hire’s role was expected to be implemented, and the rubric by which work would be measured. After 60 days, our new staff member was asked to complete a survey about the onboarding experience so we could evaluate and implement improvements.
Greater Public Advisory Group
In 2022 we launched a pilot advisory group composed of BIPOC development leaders who are deeply engaged with Greater Public’s content and services. We meet with the group quarterly to receive their observations, ideas, and feedback on Greater Public’s existing content as well as recommendations for future content.
We cultivate an equitable and inclusive culture within Greater Public.
- Fair Compensation: Conducted a benchmark salary review and adjustment of staff positions in 2021 to ensure that all staff were compensated fairly. All Greater Public employees receive a living wage and receive equal healthcare and retirement benefits (not based on title or seniority).
- Internal Communication: Implemented an internal communication plan in 2022 so all staff and contractors are aware of the goals, efforts, and accountability commitments made by the DEI committee.
- Paid Equity Training: 13 staff (80%) voluntarily attended six different paid trainings through Equity in the Center in 2023.
- Practicing Productive Conflict: Greater Public staff and contractors participated in conflict training with Nicole Cardoza of Reimagined (formerly Anti-Racism Daily) in 2024, and subsequently launched small-group practicums to cultivate new conflict competence skills.
We join in solidarity with BIPOC-led efforts to advance equity in public media.
Public Media for All Pledge
Greater Public has committed to completing 10 actions within three years from the Public Media for All pledge in order to demonstrate internal DEI work. We completed six of ten actions in 2021.
We cultivate relationships with and among BIPOC colleagues within the public media system.
We’ve implemented systems in most of our touchpoints with people who come into contact with Greater Public to name their own racial identity. Staff receive monthly information about the self-identification of new and existing contacts. These identification processes allow for measurement and enable our accountability.
To share your racial identity with us, visit the account center and update your profile.
Our Hour
In 2020, we launched Our Hour: A Gathering for BIPOC in Public Media as a town-hall gathering focused on connection and empowerment for public media Professionals of Color. The group is facilitated by Greater Public Equity and Inclusion Advisor and Public Media for All coalition member Sway Steward. BIPOC professionals can join here.
PMDMC Fundraisers of Color Luncheons
In 2023, the Fundraisers of Color Luncheon continued its tradition of offering connection and empowerment to BIPOC at PMDMC, building off of the success of past virtual and in-person events.The luncheon’s theme was centered around dealing with and planning for uncertainty and emphasized engagement in unwavering support for one another as a means of preparing for the future. Abolitionist Jason Sole shared his journey from incarceration to community building, stressing the importance of solidarity when crisis strikes, and moderated an interactive dialogue amongst attendees.
For 2024, in an effort to be more inclusive of attendees with non-fundraising specific roles, the luncheon was revamped as the Our Hour Luncheon. In what has been a challenging year for the public media industry as a whole, especially for BIPOC who face additional hurdles working in a predominantly white institution, the theme of celebrating our joy was selected by the attendees from an Our Hour Town Hall earlier in the year. Sway Steward, CEO of AfroArcher Enterprises and Equity and Inclusion Advisor for Greater Public, along with luncheon co-host Dr. Byron Green-Calisch, V.P. of IDEA for PRX and local San Diegan DJ Henry V, hosted a variety of gameshow-like activities and networking interactions using music to energize the crowd.
The Our Hour Luncheon will return at PMDMC 2025.
Network Growth
In 2021 we set a goal to complete 100 cultivation activities with BIPOC colleagues in order to build new relationships, highlight the system’s best work, and draw from many perspectives and voices to inform our content. We completed 115 cultivation activities that year, increased those activities to 234 in 2022;,and to 251 in 2023. Being intentional about the make-up of our network cultivation has supported relationship-building, diversification of perspective in our annual conference, webinars, and blog posts.
Roundtables
We publish all active Greater Public cohort groups, called Roundtables, and their criteria to make them transparent and accessible to all of our members. We also provided our Roundtable hosts with inclusiveness and facilitation training aimed at making all Roundtable cohorts welcoming spaces.
Reconciliation
In 2021, Greater Public began to work on this Public Media for All action item:
Recognize that Greater Public staff and leadership have not been doing enough DEI work, while implicitly and/or explicitly reinforcing the status quo in public media through our work, which harmed or deprived people from opportunity. Apologize. Create space for white staff to take ownership of these issues, do work to dismantle racial bias, and learn to listen to and empower people of color colleagues.
We examined who has been historically advantaged and disadvantaged by the practices within our own organization:
- Until recently, Greater Public incorporated informal hiring practices such as word-of-mouth referrals for job candidates, and the use of the hiring criterion “good culture fit,” which often reinforces implicit bias. These practices advantaged:
- individuals already working in the industry
- individuals with existing relationships to the organization
- individuals with identities already represented within the organization
We have created formal job postings for all staff and contractor positions since 2020.
- Greater Public historically did not codify transparent and inclusive policies and procedures. This advantaged individuals who already shared cultural norms dominant within the organization.
We have worked to demonstrate transparency in all of our policies and procedures.
- Greater Public historically did not actively cultivate a diversity of voices as webinar and conference presenters, and blog authors, which advantaged individuals who already held dominant representation in the industry.
We set annual representation goals in each content area.
- Greater Public’s workforce has historically included many independent contractors. This practice advantaged individuals with sources of financial stability outside of contract employment.
We assessed our compensation and benefits structures to ensure they are applied fairly between current contractors and staff. In advance of posting another contract position, we will examine the barriers to access that such a position structure might create.
- Greater Public has historically hired staff based on expertise as defined by dominant practices in our industry. This has advantaged long-time industry fundraising practitioners, and those with industry-generated credentials.
We are aware of the potential impact of this practice and have not outlined a hiring policy that doesn’t heavily rely on industry-generated credentials.
- The professionalization of public media development beginning in the late 1980s focused on super-serving a core audience of largely white, formally-educated, wealthy Americans in order to stabilize and grow revenue. This has advantaged practitioners at larger organizations who represent these identities.
The legacy of these decisions is still active today. We are committed to supporting the growth of public media’s audience (and the staff who serve them) to include all Americans.
Greater Public acknowledges that our historic practices have led to inequitable opportunities, advancement, and financial gain for individuals within our organization and industry. We apologize for the harm we’ve caused, specifically to BIPOC and less established contributors in our industry who may have experienced decreased financial gain, advancement, exposure, and influence in public media as a result of our practices.
In 2022 we conducted conversations intended to illuminate specific harm that we may seek to repair. If an individual does experience harm when interacting with any aspect of our organization, we are committed to actively listening to and working toward repair in response to those experiences. If you would like to bring to light an instance of harm, please email us.
We support DEI growth and transformation throughout public media.
In 2021, Greater Public conducted its inaugural survey on Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices within public media. In the fall of 2023, we conducted a follow-up survey revealing a deeper understanding of what influences perceptions of DEI progress and how employees experience DEI efforts within their organizations.
A Vision of Transparency and Inclusion
We hold a vision for what we want to see define the culture and practices of our industry in 10-20 years:
- Power within public media organizations is representational of the surrounding community the organization serves.
- Multiple perspectives have equal value within public media organizations.
- Public media organizations practice a culture of transparency and accountability.
- Public media organizations’ staffs are representative of the communities they serve, and hold the range of competencies (including cultural, lived experience, etc.) needed to achieve the goals of the organization.
- Public media organizations maintain mutually beneficial community partnerships.
The DEI content we create in the form of webinars, blog posts, conference sessions, and training is focused on building skills in at least one of the above areas.
DEI Executive Forum
In 2021, we launched the DEI Executive Forum, led by Equity Strategist Minal Bopaiah, which provides six-month cohort experiences to give public media executives the skills and strategy to make equity a reality in their organizations. Several participants observed that the forum created a safe space in which participants were willing to be vulnerable, and this dynamic cultivated participant growth.
Inclusive Manager Program
The Inclusive Manager Program is for all leaders and managers in public media who want to address the complex challenges facing our industry when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. The program is co-designed and facilitated by Kathy Lu and Shilpa Alimchandani. Greater Public has offered two of these cohorts each year since 2022.
Equity and Inclusion Thought Leadership
We maintain annual goals to publish equity and inclusion thought leadership on our blog, including 12 posts in 2023, 13 posts in 2022, and eight posts in 2021. We have a goal of publishing at least 12 equity and inclusion posts in 2024.
2024 will mark the third year of the Audience Development Summit, a collaboration between Greater Public and PRPD, to bring together public media leadership, development, marketing, and content professionals to connect with and serve new audiences. Younger and more diverse audiences are the future of public media and our goals to develop those audiences are inextricable from DEI goals.
We use our platforms to elevate BIPOC voices and leadership in public media.
Because Greater Public elevates the accomplishments of individuals and organizations as part of our conferences, webinars, and blog posts, we are accountable for cultivating and highlighting the work and experiences of diverse networks of people.
We began auditing the whiteness of our own content in 2020, including authorship of blog posts, PMDMC panelists and webinar presenters with the goal of increasing the number and diversity of voices we represent in all of our content areas.
The Public Media Development and Marketing Conference (PMDMC)
Starting in 2021, Greater Public began to intentionally program the PMDMC to use equity as a lens to to reframe the fundraising landscape. Initially, we created a track exclusively focused on DEI practices in public media but found that attendance to these sessions was low, as they competed with other sessions related to revenue growth and audience development. Instead of separating DEI in the content, Greater Public now threads DEI into every session by asking the presenters, “How do you approach DEI in your work?”
PMDMC24 DEI Goals:
- Include 45% BIPOC representation among breakout speakers, with a stretch goal of 55%. (35% of breakout speakers identified as BIPOC.)
- Integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into each session by asking each panelist, “how do you approach DEI in the work that you do?”
- Diversify the station sizes represented among speakers by increasing the number of presenters from small and medium stations.
- Increase accessibility at the in-person conference through closed captions and better hotel accommodations.
PMDMC23 DEI Goals:
- Include 35% BIPOC representation among breakout speakers.
- 100% of sessions must include at least one speaker who identifies as BIPOC
- Integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into each session by asking each panelist, “how do you approach DEI in the work that you do?”
- Diversify the station sizes represented among speakers: 15% from small stations, 30% from medium, 20% from large, 35% from mega
- Increase accessibility at the in-person conference through closed captions and better hotel accommodations
PMDMC22 DEI Goals:
- Program at least one diversity-focused breakout session in each track.
- Include 35% BIPOC representation among breakout speakers.
- 55% of all station speakers from stations (breakdown: 3% from small; 12% from medium; 85% from large/mega).
- 30% of breakout session speakers are c-suite/director level women (actual: 45%)
- 100% of breakout sessions must include at least one speaker who identifies as BIPOC (61% of the sessions had at least one speaker who identified as BIPOC).
PMDMC21 DEI Goals:
- Program at least one diversity-focused breakout session in each track
- Include 30% BIPOC representation among breakout speakers.
- Percentage of female representation as speakers in keynotes: 67%; in sessions: 63%
- Increased the number of BIPOC session proposal submitters.
- Include speakers from small, medium, large, and mega stations.
- Make closed captioning and transcriptions available in sessions (this goal was not financially feasible for Greater Public in 2021).
- Include 10% speakers from outside the industry.
Greater Public Blog
During the past five years we have transformed who is represented on Greater Public’s blog. Half of our blog posts are now written by media professionals outside of Greater Public, including colleagues at public media organizations as well as journalists who are familiar with the industry. We’ve set representation goals for authorship on our blog since 2020.
Our goal in 2024 is to represent 35% BIPOC authorship on our blog.
- 2023 percentage of posts by BIPOC authors: 24%
- 2022 percentage of posts by BIPOC authors: 20%
- 2021 percentage of posts by BIPOC authors: 41%
- 2020 percentage of posts by BIPOC authors: 12%
- 2019 percentage of posts by BIPOC authors: 2%
Greater Public Suppliers and Service Providers
We are accountable for ensuring that our contracted external service providers are in alignment with our organizational values.
In 2021 we had conversations with our four largest vendors about their approaches to DEI and affirmed a values alignment with each of the vendors. That same year we sought to work with an audit firm that defined itself as a historically underutilized business. The Texas-based firm we selected is women-founded and owned Blazek & Vetterling.
Our work in 2022 is to examine the timelines and processes that can lead to our working with already-networked vendors due to time constraints. We also plan to advance accountability with vendors by developing a formal articulation of values to use in those partnerships.
Greater Public Website
With the exception of our blog, the fundraising content published on our website, greaterpublic.org, is written by our team of employees and contractors, and the demographics of authorship mirror the demographics of our organization. In our small organization with a low rate of turnover, this has made us aware of the perspectives that might be missing from the fundraising content we publish on our site.
DEI Advisory Group
We established our DEI Advisory Group in 2022, with three public media professionals: Porsche Hill of WRTI, Edmundo Resendez of KRWG, and Aaron Turner of WGVU. Over the past two years we have met to discuss Greater Public’s overall DEI goals and to hear their feedback and perspectives on various services and initiatives, including: PMDMC, our webinars, our blog, our general site content, training opportunities, partnerships, and DEI survey results.
DEIAB Practitioners Cohort
In 2023, Sway Steward, alongside Dr. Byron Green, VP of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility at PRX, and Shayna Schlosberg, Equity Leader of OPB, teamed up to launch the first-ever Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging (DEIAB) Practitioners Cohort. This cohort is for current DEIAB practitioners working full-time or consulting for public media stations or organizations, aiming to create a community for practitioners to learn from one another, share findings and resources, and develop commonalities around DEI-specific terminology and practices. The group continues to meet monthly and is working on solidifying its values and how to support DEI efforts across the industry.
Webinars
We began asking webinar presenters to opt in to sharing their racial identity. These are our estimates of presenter representation in past years:
- 2023 BIPOC presenters: 30%
- 2022 BIPOC presenters: 23%
- 2021 BIPOC presenters: 27%
- 2020 BIPOC presenters: 16%
- 2019 BIPOC presenters: 12% (estimated)
Conclusion
Greater Public’s DEI work is active and is ongoing; there is much that remains to be done. By being transparent about our own actions, we at Greater Public hope to be in solidarity with the entire public media system about what a sustained, impact-focused commitment to DEI looks like: It is not an arrival point for an organization but a commitment to demonstrate our core values through action over time.