commonFont’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

BOZEMAN, MT and PROVIDENCE, RI, Mar. 1, 2021 – In keeping with our mission to serve clients, employees, and community, commonFont is committed to advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) within our organization and beyond. This commitment is central to our founding principles: 

Core to the ethos of commonFont is the perspective that opportunities and benefits are created to be shared. A commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is central to commonFont values. Through this commitment, we seek to promote positive change and impact in our communities — those that exist within our company and beyond.

Abby Schlatter, CEO & Co-founder, commonFont

A commitment to DEI not only embodies commonFont values, but also makes good business sense. Diversity in teammate identities promotes problem-solving, creativity, and superior solutions. Removing barriers so collaboration can be fluid, natural, and effective helps to activate teammates in a way that leads to excellent business outcomes. Inclusion is both an enabler and an outcome of success. 

We strive to recruit, hire, and develop a diverse team. We take our responsibilities as an equal opportunity employer seriously. Equal opportunity applies to all aspects of employment, and extends well beyond a pledge of non-discrimination. commonFont values diversity. Diverse identities, such as race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, family status, veteran status, and religion, make us stronger. Since inception, commonFont has focused on building a company where diverse identities flourish and where we create a positive impact:

• Woman-led (CEO) and owned small business, headquartered in Bozeman, MT
• Gender parity, with equal representation of women at all levels and roles, including the leadership team of the company
• Intentional focus to build a team that reflects racial and ethnic diversity, including ongoing review to identify and act upon opportunities to improve business processes such as recruiting
• Purposeful establishment of a second office location in Providence, RI to establish an East Coast presence in a community with a multicultural, diverse talent pool  
• Company-sponsored community service days that include direct volunteerism with organizations that support underrepresented and underserved populations 
• Company charitable giving through a DEI lens, including a recent $500,000 capital contribution to address hunger and homelessness in the Bozeman community 
• Comprehensive, generous employee benefits that support a broad spectrum of individual and family needs 

commonFont has taken the approach of embedding DEI into our company goals and how we work together. Scholarship and research show that DEI initiatives in organizations are most effective when they are integrated as part of the organization’s strategy and operations, versus implemented as standalone initiatives. We believe it is critical that DEI be integrated into our strategic objectives and how we collaborate and communicate as a team. In conjunction with assessing our current state, we have advanced several key workstreams at commonFont to further embed DEI into company objectives, business processes, and teammate responsibilities:

• Embed DEI goals into strategic objectives and organizational assessments
• Provide ongoing DEI training, resources, and coaching for employees  
• commonFont initiated a partnership with DEI thought leader Kimberly Dailey to support individual and team skill development as well as incorporation of best practices for advancing DEI into our core business processes. Workshops have focused on activating individual awareness and understanding of topics related to DEI as well as skill building in signature traits of inclusive leadership.
• Promote healthy operational processes with a focus on inclusivity and bias mitigation. Company-wide emphasis on advancing individual and team abilities to listen effectively, invite dissenting viewpoints, and foster connection between people.
• Review role descriptions for inclusive language, and increase our organization’s connection to diverse candidates through community and university partnerships and outreach
• Activate an Employee Experience (EX) program to solicit feedback from teammates through a variety of methods. Benchmark against other leading organizations, inclusive of comparative data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
• Partner with and support nonprofit organizations to expand DEI initiatives and impact in and around our communities of Bozeman, MT and Providence, RI 
• Expand community service days to encourage teammates to take off Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Election Day, or Veterans Day to engage in a civic or service activity and to support democratic institutions and processes

We aspire for commonFont to be a uniquely exceptional, high-performing team. In the months ahead, we seek to expand upon advancements in DEI with an eye toward identifying and progressing opportunities through commonFont teammates, clients, and our communities.