Diversity Commitment

Our engagement with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is evolving. We will continue to have many conversations with people from around the world, implement a variety of employee evaluations and training opportunities, and spend time learning and listening. We’re interested in letting you all know some of our ongoing initiatives toward greater diversity, inclusivity and equity both within the company and in our magazines, webinars, future fairs, websites, and podcasts.

Growing Together

We are working to grow a company where everyone is welcome, where individuals of diverse backgrounds and views can make a difference, where we utilize our platform to promote inclusion and call for an end to discrimination in our society, where we work together internally and with our outside contributors to provide content that demonstrates our commitment to growing a Can-Do community for everyone.

Come grow it with us… 

What we are doing to address racial diversity and eliminate discrimination:

We at Ogden Publications stand with Black, Indigenous, people of color and all others who call for an end to discrimination, be it rooted in race, gender or disability. We will do our part to dismantle systemic racism and discrimination in our society. We are opening up dialogue throughout our organization and with key partners to listen, learn, and identify ways we can provide needed support. We invite everyone to be a part of the conversation to help initiate and drive change within our organization, in our industry, and throughout our country.

We are seeking additional authors and members of our editorial board beyond our current writers — members who can diversify the board as well as offer further reach into the BIPOC community of sustainability.

We are examining our hiring and promoting practices to ensure they are fair and just. We are choosing opportunities to read, participate in courses at all levels within the organization, as well as share and view online videos that will be used to make and keep us aware of subconscious decisions we are making, so we can correct them.

We are examining our vetting practices for our contributors and speakers in an effort to look beyond their speaking and writing skills to ensure there is no racial or gender bias and that we share the same values.

We invite everyone to share their ideas and perspectives as you watch the stages of change, and the progress we are striving to make in order to continue inspiring all communities with can-do passion.

Actions

  • Late 2022

    Our inaugural MOTHER EARTH NEWS Voices initiative was rolled out in November and the six participants were chosen in December. The 2023 Voices are experts in various fields of self-sufficiency and sustainable living who work on advancing equality among historically marginalized populations. This program is intended to amplify the Voices participants by sharing our platform with them through our magazines, social media channels, podcasts and at our MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIRs. We look forward to learning more from their expertise and introducing them to our audience throughout 2023!

    The integrated editorial team at Ogden Publications has been working to increase accessibility by including more audio versions of articles from Mother Earth News. There are also plans to produce a transcription process to make our podcast episodes available to those with hearing impairments.

  • Early 2022

    The directors of Ogden Publications worked with the Native Americans for Restorative Stewardship to better understand the “Key Dynamics of Oppression in Society.” The four 90-minute sessions over two months focused on power dynamics that have been built into the structure of our society, which ultimately describes the form of oppression that many demographics must endure. The intent was to understand the “how” of oppression, not necessarily the “what” or “why.”  This learning opportunity is valuable to our leaders because it builds a fundamental base for our understanding and awareness of a multitude of oppressive issues, including accessibility, sex and gender, LGBTQIA2+, and racially-based content.

    A number of partnerships have been forged by our events department with varied organizations such as Organic Growers SchoolFarmers Market Coalition, and EcoFarm that have strong commitments to equity and inclusion. Numerous ideas and inspiration have been gleaned from them as they set great examples for the quality of work that is possible when these values are centered.

  • Winter 2021-2022

    As part of our ongoing journey, we have spent this last year doing a lot of internal evaluation. Inspired Solutions worked with us to conduct a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) of our company and developed a staff survey focused on gleaning information about some of our internal biases. We are deeply grateful for their help and honesty.

    We’ve started an ongoing relationship with NARS (Native Americans for Restorative Stewardship), who are now part of our Editorial Board. We deeply value their passion, insight, and help guiding us toward a much better understanding of indigenous representation and history in the fields of land stewardship, forestry, animal husbandry, and so much more.

    We’re interested in playing the long game and are on a fantastic journey of conversation, learning, changing, and growing.  We hope you’ll join us.

    Please feel free to contact us with ideas and suggestions at ogdendiversity@ogdenpubs.com.

  • Winter 2020-21

    This has been a year of reckoning and change for many companies and Ogden has been no exception. Our work is incremental, but we are committed to long-term change in order to create a safe and inclusive workplace.

    Currently, we are working with Studio ATAO to produce an open record of our steps and setbacks and track our progress toward a more diverse and inclusive workplace over the course of a year. The goal is to share our journey with other companies that may not know where to start, may have underestimated the difficulty of changing mindsets, and may need encouragement to keep pushing forward. We will also be sharing ideas, failures, and progress in a more transparent manner, not only to help others, but also to hold ourselves publicly accountable to our commitment for making change.

    The other way we will hold ourselves accountable is through the content and voices in our publications, podcasts, and events. For the past few years, we have been working to address the lack of diversity in our publications by bringing in a broader range of experts from all walks of life. Not only does this provide new and unique methodologies, it also brings a better understanding of the history behind these tools and techniques to our audience. The evidence of our initial efforts is becoming more recognizable in our mediums, and it will continue to grow.

    Presently, we have reached out to seven different DEI training consultant businesses to find a good fit for our company. Our goals are to train our staff and managers in creating and maintaining a more inclusive and diverse workplace, and to specifically train management staff on hiring and retention practices. If nothing else, 2020 has shown us the many different ways work can be accomplished, and has shaken us free of some old notions of what a “work place” has to look like.

  • Fall 2020

    We are working with Studio ATAO by doing a white paper with them to document our progress toward becoming an anti-racist organization. This allows us to be in contact with them and their resources and keeps us accountable to our own commitment toward an equitable workplace. Hopefully, this documentation of our journey will also provide a positive roadmap for other companies grappling with the same issues.

    Examination of our space and policies – we are doing a very detailed examination of our physical building, employee policies, and staff training to identify areas for improvement. For example, we are considering many options to improve physical accessibility, even though we already meet the minimum required state standards. A new employee intake form in being developed so that we can ensure that everyone has the best physical workspace to suit their physical and mental needs.
    While our first attempts to find a contractor for employee training did not work out, we are still actively seeking programs to provide solid diversity and inclusion training for our staff, and additional specific training for management.

    Examination of our products – We are exploring ways to efficiently create accessible options for our readers and online viewers such as close captioning, and audio files.

    We continue to seek out and develop relationships with authors of color who have unique experiences and expertise.

  • 2020 Summer

    Right now, September 17, 2020, we are working to contract with a company who will guide us in providing an equitable workplace for all our employees and increasing the diversity of our workforce. The company will help us identify and share specific benchmarks so we can gauge our progress toward our goals, as well as help us pursue in-house staff education on diversity and inclusion.

    We are actively seeking diverse presenters and authors to share their experiences and expertise with our audience through webinars, magazine articles, and other media.

    Our audience engagement teams continue working to attract and retain a diverse audience who will be interested in the content we provide, and to share the ideas and experiences of this diverse community across social media platforms.