To our community of current and future team members, clients, impact partners, industry colleagues, and anyone else who is learning about the greater:​

the greater was launched with a belief that there was a different way to do business; that organizations could both be great and do good. This belief is core to who we are and what we do as a strategy consulting firm who works with socially conscious businesses and organizations AND as a social enterprise that invests 50% of our net-profit into community organizations.

Through the growth of the greater, we are trying build a firm that challenges the status quo. But we have to be clear; for many, the status quo doesn’t work, is built on systems with barriers, and can create harms.  As we try and challenge the status quo, we need to also acknowledge that we as Co-founders have benefited from it significantly.

We reference ourselves in this letter because we as Co-Founders are accountable for the commitments, However, the story of the greater is not our story in isolation. We are a team and each of us has a unique lived experience. These commitments have been determined in consultation with each of our team members who all bring a unique perspective. Together, we share the responsibility to create and uphold our culture as we grow together.

Challenging the status quo ultimately requires us to challenge ourselves and to be open to doing things differently. That is the starting point for our EDI commitments; to be open to continuously unlearn and learn so we can do better.  More specifically, we commit to celebrate the diverse identities, lived experiences, and ways of thinking of our team, clients and partners, to foster a sense of belonging as well as a culture of respect.

Below this statement is an online dashboard that outlines key pillars of our EDI Commitment and a Dashboard for tracking our progress. Its ideas range widely, from being a signatory of POCAM’s Call for Equity, to salary transparency on all posted roles, to embedding EDI into learning and development budgets.

We post this publicly so that our statement of intent can be viewed alongside actionable commitments, and that other agencies or consultancies -  specifically start-up and growing firms – could see our approach.

We are always open to receiving and actioning feedback from our staff, clients, partners and the community – including how or why we say something. If you have comments, questions, or want to learn more about our commitments, please reach out to us at [email protected] ​

From: Matthew Klar and Matthew Logue-Lee, co-founders, the greater