Practice What You Preach: Accountability and Real-World Equity
Workforce data gets used for a lot of corporate fluff. Companies use it to track speed or cover their bases. But for a racial equity organization like Greenlining, data is different. It is a mirror. It shows us if we actually live by the values we put on your website.
The reality is, we are in a hostile political climate for equity and diversity work right now. Over the last couple of years, companies across the country have rolled back DEI programs in response to the Trump Administration’s anti-DEI rhetoric. Companies are backing away out of fear. But we won’t do that. We were built to fight racist barriers to opportunity that are linked to legacy harms like redlining and exclusion. When the rest of the country scales back, we have to look inward and audit ourselves so we can keep pushing forward.
Honestly, it is uncomfortable to look critically at our own practices. But at a time when economic justice is under attack, it is necessary. We know from our work with communities of color to create a more just economy that hiring processes that are clunky, slow, or dismissive contribute to racial wealth and opportunity gaps. That is why we use surveys to understand where we can do better. We do not do it to check a box. We do it to strengthen our systems and make sure we treat people equitably.
The Mirror: Who Is in the Room?
To build a good workplace, you have to know exactly who is on your team.
We just wrapped up our Internal Representation Survey. We sent this survey out to 48 staff members and 14 board members. In total, 40 people responded — including 27 staff members and 13 board members. That gives us a solid 64.5% overall response rate.
The data shows that our team reflects the communities we advocate for. Look at the racial makeup: 100% of our staff and board respondents identify as people of color. Here is the specific breakdown:
- 11 people identify as Hispanic, Latino, Latina, or Latinx.
- 9 people identify as Asian or Asian American.
- 9 people identify as Black or African American.
- The rest of the team includes individuals who identify as Middle Eastern, North African, Filipino, and Indigenous, alongside multi-racial staff.
The numbers on gender and sexual orientation show a similar depth of diversity:
- 67.5% of our team are women (27 respondents).
- 10 respondents identify as men.
- 3 individuals identify as gender fluid, non-binary, or genderqueer.
- 30% of our workforce and board identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, listing their orientations as queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual.
- 17.5% of respondents live with a disability.
This representation is our biggest asset. Having a team connected to communities shaped by redlining and disinvestment helps us bring lived experience to our advocacy work. But representation alone does not guarantee an equitable experience. Our values must also be reflected in working with us – including in the hiring process.
Where Our Recruitment Process Fell Short
Our second survey revealed a significant gap between our values and some candidates’ experiences. We sent a recruitment survey to 148 applicants who made it to a phone screen or further during our last hiring cycle. We received 53 responses — a 36% response rate.
The respondents represented a diverse group of candidates::
- 75.5% of respondents (40 out of 53) identify as people of color, multiracial, Indigenous, or Middle Eastern/North African.
- 56.6% identify as women (30 respondents), 30.2% as men (16 respondents), and 9.4% as gender fluid, non-binary, or genderqueer (5 respondents).
- There was also strong representation across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, including queer, gay, lesbian, and bisexual applicants.
Our organization and job descriptions successfully drew in candidates from diverse backgrounds. But the survey results revealed a gap between the candidates we attracted and the experience we provided once they entered our hiring process.
In 2025, we rewrote our job descriptions to increase transparency into the experience of working at Greenlining. Candidates responded positively. On a scale of 1 to 5, the clarity score averaged 3.85, with nearly 73% of respondents giving it a 4 or a 5. Applicants knew what we wanted and felt their skills matched the roles perfectly.
Our communication after those initial stages did not meet the same standard.
A significant number of applicants reported that they did not hear from us after completing a screening call or submitting their availability for one. Some candidates who made it all the way to hiring manager interviews or final panel rounds said our team went completely dark. Some only found out they did not get the job because they checked our public website months later, or because they had to repeatedly email us to ask what was going on. On top of that, 100% of the interviewed candidates who responded said they received zero specific or actionable feedback after a decision was made.
The reality is, sending an automated survey request months after an interview — without ever giving the candidate a formal rejection notice — feels completely disrespectful. For a racial equity organization, these experiences did not reflect the standards we set for ourselves. To a candidate, a total lack of communication does not look like an administrative mistake. It looks like we do not practice what we preach.
Building a More Accountable Process
Searching for a job requires significant time and emotional energy. Filling out candidate profiles and doing interviews is real, uncompensated labor. When we ghost people, we are extracting that labor while failing to offer the basic respect they deserve.
Addressing this requires changes to our systems. Right now, we are evaluating three specific concepts inspired by public sector models to make our process predictable and respectful:
1. Published Cohort Hiring Windows
Open-ended hiring periods can lead to long and uncertain timelines. Instead, we are working on including clear process timelines from day one, through the hiring process. Job postings will list the exact weeks for application reviews, phone screens, and interviews. Candidates will know the timeline before they even apply.
2. Standardized Step Progression
We need to map out the entire interview process upfront so people do not feel stuck in an endless loop. This means committing to a strict, limited sequence: an HR screen, one hiring manager interview, and one final panel or exercise. Keeping our internal teams on a strict schedule respects the candidate’s time.
3. The Review Safeguard
We are exploring a concept used by the City of Oakland. We want to create a short, structured window where an applicant can request a re-review if they are told they did not meet the core qualifications. This would serve as an equity checkpoint, giving our HR team an opportunity to ensure we have not overlooked qualified candidates with nontraditional backgrounds, transferable experience, or community organizing skills that may not fit conventional hiring criteria.
We will need to develop and implement these changes deliberately, in phased stages over the next few months. Because Greenlining has a unionized workforce, any changes to our hiring process must also be appropriately considered in relation to our collective bargaining agreement and ongoing negotiations.
Walking the talk on equity means looking at our operational failures just as clearly as our diversity wins. We are proud that 100% of our staff and board respondents are people of color. But representation is just the floor. The real test is making sure every single person who interacts with us experiences a culture of transparency, accountability, and radical respect.