#BlackLivesMatter
6.1.20.
To our community,
In early 2019, we made a commitment to do the work to better support our community, extending our philosophy of designing better experiences for people: we called that Better Community, by Design.
We started with small steps that we hope will one day lead to bigger change by supporting work being done to create equality for women, to end modern-day slavery globally, to boost positivity in the LGBTQ+ community and to share moments of care with front line COVID-19 responders. We deeply apologize to our community that we have not prioritized racism and we want to start now.
To the Black community: we see you, we love you, we are sorry for our absence and we commit to doing better for you.
We believe that supporting the #BlackLivesMatter movement is about humanity. We have struggled with the best way to be an ally as a company, especially during this healthcare crisis that has impacted us so significantly, both individually and as a business, when we’ve had to cut costs to stay afloat.
But that's the thing – we still have power that we’d like to share.
As white business owners and leaders we have privilege and the power conferred by our race and we commit to use that to be anti-racist allies. We’re still working on all of the best the ways to do that, but here are some of them:
• We commit to donating $50K of product to causes that celebrate or uplift people in the Black community – we are still working on the best places to send this and will update you. If you have recommendations, we’d love to hear them.
• We commit to more intentional recruiting practices that include more candidates from the Black community.
• We commit to more regularly featuring & celebrating Black beauty in content across all of our mediums as a brand – from our social channels, to our advertising campaigns and promotional/educational materials
• We commit to supporting more Black influencers as part of our ongoing marketing work.
• We are proud to have a team of employees that cares about humanity & we pledge to work together to create an anti-racist program where we’re all doing the work to create solutions.
• We are still trying to figure out what our financial commitment can be as a company. We were hit hard by COVID-19, but as we recover as a business, we will commit to donating funds that help propel anti-racist work. We will share more in the coming weeks.
• We appreciate you bearing with us as we stumble to figure it out. We are doing the work and using the resources out there to educate ourselves. It’s not your job to teach us, but if you’d like to share any feedback or what you hope to see from us, we’d love to hear from you.
We send you love and strength from our family at work and at home.
#BlackLivesMatter
Leigh, Jeremy & The Artis Team