Mission

For the sake of our research process, we defined leadership as those serving in the following roles: Board of Directors, Founders/President, Directors, CXO, SVPs. So far, we have focused on two designations: race and gender at birth. We classified race and gender into two categories each: white or people of color (POC), and male or female. People are considered white if they are of European descent and considered POC if they are Asian, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latinx, Mixed, or any other non-white race/ethnicity. As to gender, we began only by looking at ‘sex at birth’ classification. Currently, the US population is composed of 40% people of color and 51% women. The purpose of our research and writing is to showcase how closely the leadership of an entity represents the American population.

We chose the designations of race and gender not only because data on these metrics is more publicly available, but also because historically, people of darker complexion have been exploited for labor and seen as ‘less’ in various aspects of life — from media representation to hiring practices. Women are also less likely to be hired or elected into leadership positions, and women of color are at the intersection of these prejudices.

Vision

One of Balance Now’s ultimate goals is to encourage American audiences to be more cognizant of the decision-makers in the institutions that influence their daily lives. The perceptions held by our society about people of color and women vary from individual to individual and are by no means equivalent experiences for all. However, these statistics help show the glaring discrepancies in the lack of reflective, multidimensional representation across decision-makers of major institutions that shape our lives — from those who make our food to films to health policies.

Future

As we move into another era at Balance Now, we hope to broaden our classification systems to represent race and ethnicity more specifically and a fuller range of diversity metrics, such as non-binary gender classification, age, sexuality, religion, education level, socioeconomic background, disability status, and veteran status. We hope the Balance Now platform encourages institutions to embrace multidimensional representation within their leadership and for everyday people to drive that change, empowered by a willingness for betterment and insight provided by our platform.