At Prentiss Smith & Company, we believe that Black lives matter. We recognize that we benefit from extraordinary privilege, and that we must do more to deploy this privilege to address systemic and institutionalized racism. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others before them, followed by the excessive response of government and police forces to ensuing protests, have galvanized us to take action.
To start, we will take the following steps to support racial justice in our country:
- We will donate $25,000 to social justice organizations that support reform of our criminal justice system. These include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a prominent legal organization fighting for racial justice, and others.
- We commit to continued financial support of these organizations, or others with similar missions, as our resources allow, until our country’s systemic racism has been more fully addressed.
- We support our employees in speaking out, protesting and volunteering in support of racial equity.
- We will change our core issue area of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice. In practice, we believe this change will mean an even more rigorous focus on seeking out companies that back up strong antiracist statements with actions such as corporate giving to social justice causes, equitable supply chain practices, or employment policies for diversity, equity and inclusion. Where companies fall short, we will increase our existing engagement to promote change, while in some cases we may decide to divest entirely.
- We will continue to listen, to try to understand perspectives other than our own, and to educate ourselves about how we can do even more to support the cause of racial justice in the United States and the world.
