Freedom Isn't Enough: LifeCity's Honest Journey With Equity and Inclusion
In honor of Juneteenth, I wanted to share more about LifeCity’s journey with equity and inclusion, especially as it relates to hiring, because we know that the challenges leading to and after Juneteenth are the same challenges that remain today.
On June 19th, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with a simple announcement: “enslaved people were free.” The Emancipation Proclamation had declared that freedom two and a half years earlier, on January 1, 1863, but enslaved people in Texas had continued to be held in bondage and exploited for their labor simply because there were no Union troops present to enforce the law. Although Juneteenth was celebrated by Black communities for generations, it only became a federal holiday in 2021.
When Juneteenth declared freedom in this region, it came with no support. No land. No money. No resources. There had been a proposal to secure 40 acres and a mule for the newly freed people, but it was struck down by President Andrew Johnson.
Over the coming years, freed Black Americans were turned away from jobs, murdered without legal consequence, and systematically excluded from the education and economic systems being built around them. Black Codes, and later Jim Crow laws, effectively re-enslaved many through sharecropping and convict leasing.
A mirror in History: General Thomas in the Reconstruction Era
A few years ago, LifeCity had the opportunity to visit Thomasville, GA, to complete an impact assessment of a manufacturing facility. We became familiar with the challenges that the Emancipation Proclamation had declared in theory, but not practice, and were struck by how much the challenges of the past still continued today. The person for whom the City of Thomasville was named, General Samuel Thomas, was a Union Army General and a leader during the Reconstruction era. He had become the city’s namesake after a large donation to a local school. He was an entrepreneur and visionary who was very successful in the railroad business. After the Civil War, General Thomas was elected by the "Freedman's Bureau" to help support the newly freed enslaved and their families across the south in obtaining employment. He is famous for his testimony in the First Session of Congress in 1865, where he described the attitudes of ex-Confederates toward the former slaves:
“Wherever I go — the street, the shop, the house, or the steamboat — I hear the people talk in such a way as to indicate that they are yet unable to conceive of the Negro as possessing any rights at all. Men who are honorable in their dealings with their white neighbors will cheat a Negro without feeling a single twinge of their honor. To kill a Negro they do not deem murder…”
Across the United States and the south, including Thomasville, disparity between whites and the BIPOC community continues. Unfortunately, many of the same challenges that faced the General over a century ago continue today, with Black communities most at risk for disparities in education, employment, wealth, health outcomes, and so much more.
LifeCity takes equity and inclusion seriously, because we know it is one of the greatest threats to our national and global economy and to society as a whole. Giving every person the opportunity to thrive is simply the right thing to do, but it's also the best thing for our economy. In our work specifically, we believe that designing a sustainable business or organization fundamentally requires an equity lens and strategy in both operational and impact reporting processes.
How can we fight for a more just and equitable world through the workplace as business leaders and managers?
Businesses have a massive role to play in closing the opportunity gap for those who leave our education system not fully prepared to succeed at work. Solving the great disparities of the world can't only be solved in the workplace alone, especially without addressing the source, which is in my mind early and primary childhood education access. Still, organizations can play an important role in bridging the gap.
First things first: hiring. It is a classic case that teams are often formed in the image of their founder. LifeCity actively tries to bring in a diverse team in the following ways:
We partner with minority-led institutions for internships and job postings to help attract diverse candidates;
We explicitly say that we welcome diverse applicants to apply;
We blind names in the first assessment so we don't let subconscious bias impact our rating system;and
We track hiring demographics that are self reported.
Roughly half of our hires over 15 years have been people of color. We're glad about that, and it hasn't been enough on its own. Hiring diversity without retention is just a revolving door, which our tenure data below makes clear.
I want to be honest here because I believe progress requires acknowledging the realities that shape opportunity. Access to education, professional networks, mentorship, and career pathways has not been distributed equally across communities. As a result, traditional indicators of qualification do not always capture a person's full potential, capability, or readiness to succeed.
Recognizing these disparities is not about lowering standards or providing special treatment; it is about ensuring that talent is identified and cultivated wherever it exists. At LifeCity, our commitment is to create pathways that allow a broader range of talented individuals to be seen and considered.
Here's the tricky part: a gap in experience or support can be provided by business training and development, but putting someone in a position to fail also perpetuates inequity.
I spoke about this last week with someone at a prominent national bank who said she faced the same challenge: hiring someone with diversity in mind with the belief that training would make up the gap, and then ultimately having to remove a person from a position because it wasn't sustainable.
White saviorism is not support. True support requires humility: a commitment to learn and grow alongside the people you hire, not position yourself above them. At LifeCity, I've seen individuals step into roles with less direct experience and thrive when given the right combination of coaching, training, and opportunity. In many cases, their perspectives and contributions strengthened our organization as much as we supported their development. We never lower expectations, but we do invest in people's success by providing the resources, feedback, and support they need to meet those expectations.I believe that this is the primary way businesses can help close the gap.
In our recent Community & Industry Meet-Up, neighborhood leaders from the Lower 9th Ward shared that graduates of local technical training programs often don't get hired. The New Orleans Career Center also shared that some of their graduates, predominantly African American, still don't get placements. Is it an attitude towards young people? Is it racism? Or is it people not willing to put in the work? Or is it all three? What would General Thomas say today?
I say this not as someone who is perfect and has figured it all out, but as someone who wants to lean into this important and complex topic because I believe it is the fight of our time (even more important than climate change in my opinion, because I believe an equitable world would by default live in better relationship with the environment).
Organizations that value the benefits of diverse teams can help expand opportunity by investing in talent through coaching, mentorship, and development. While not every organization has the capacity to do this at scale, those with greater resources have an important opportunity to lead. At the same time, lasting change requires addressing the root causes of inequity, including unequal access to education and opportunity.
Which brings us to inclusion: how do you ensure people want to stay and take leadership positions?
How do you create an inclusive culture so that people of color stay at your company, once hired? LifeCity does the following to help create a culture of inclusion:
We create “user guides” to help every individual explain who they are and how they best communicate;
We talk about equity and inclusion in our staff meetings and other operational meetings to make sure we don't become immune to something so ubiquitous and to provide opportunities to discuss;
We have a trust survey we distribute quarterly; and we have 2x2s in our 1-1s (feedback that goes both ways) with all layers of the company;
We participate in antiracism/DEI trainings annually; and
We try to promote from within.
As you know, culture is something that is created every day. A survey, an agenda item, and even a meeting can't make it happen. It takes everyone willing to be open and honest, and not everyone is, and not everyone will want to stay (for reasons beyond race).
All of these little moments lead to a culture of trust: and every single person impacts this. That's why at the end of the day, hiring for cultural fit is probably one of the most important things you can do, across race.
Tracking data is the first step to evaluating inclusion
We track how long people stay at the company across race and other demographics, not just for data purposes, but to keep this top of mind. With an organization our size, the data itself isn't statistically significant, but it still is important to examine.
Demographic data was recorded by both observation and self-identification, and we now collect self-identification data consistently for new hires to ensure accuracy. We also recognize that racial and ethnic categories are imperfect and that not everyone identifies with a single box. We respect that, and we are always learning how to honor the full complexity of who people are.
Here is what our data shows: across 15 years and 21 employees, our annual turnover rate is approximately 29%, which is higher than the nonprofit sector average of around 20%, but consistent with what research shows for small, mission-driven organizations (especially early on where startup conditions and the intensity of the work create naturally higher movement). Still, retention is something we want to work on and have put increasing effort towards over the past several years, and I’m proud our salaries are finally worthy of the amazing talent at the company, and we still hope to make them even stronger.
When we look specifically at tenure by race, African American employees have left on average after less than a year (5 exits), compared to around 1.2 years for White employees (9 exits), 1.73 years for bi-racial employees (3 exits), and 7.6 years for 1 hispanic employee. We know that with an organization our size, these numbers are not statistically significant, and a single departure shifts the averages considerably. But they are a signal we take seriously, because even directional data deserves attention. What gives us hope is that our current team reflects the diversity and retention we are working toward, and we are paying close attention to what is creating a good experience for everyone. We share this not because we have it figured out, but because we believe honesty is where progress begins.
While we are always learning how to be a more effective organization, in honor of Juneteenth, where Black people were declared to be freed from enslavement, we have to remember that freedom isn't enough.
So what is your organization doing today to help move our world closer towards a more just place where everyone gets the opportunity to play on the field? Are you tracking your demographic data for hiring and offboarding? How do you help close the gap in opportunity where possible?
This Juneteenth I hope you will join me in making a deeper commitment to equity within your own organization and community. The truth is, to fight this massive, long-standing problem - it takes each of us doing our part. We are always here to talk, brainstorm, and fight in the messy work that brings us all closer to a better world. Our hope is that our generation can solve this problem, and history won’t continue to repeat itself again.
Liz Shephard
CEO, LifeCity