Launch Pad Baker is committed to working for a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive Oregon. At Launch Pad Baker, the environment is one where all employees, clients volunteers, whatever their gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation or identity, education or disability, feels valued and respected.

We are committed to a nondiscriminatory approach and provide equal opportunity for employment and advancement in all of our departments, programs, and worksites. We recognize the history of oppression that has resulted in ongoing disparities for some communities, as well as the limitations of our abilities to address them without the inclusion of those communities’ voices.

We respect and value diverse life experiences and heritages and ensure that all perspectives are valued and heard, and remain dedicated in all efforts to maintain an inclusive environment with equitable treatment for all.

To provide informed, authentic leadership for cultural equity, Launch Pad Baker strives to:

• Acknowledge and dismantle any inequities within our policies, systems, programs, and services, and continually update and report organization progress.
• Explore potential underlying, unquestioned assumptions that interfere with inclusiveness.
• Advocate for and support board-level thinking about how systemic inequities impact our organization’s work, and how best to address that in a way that is consistent with our mission.
• Practice and encourage transparent communication in all interactions.
• Commit time and resources to expand more diverse leadership within our board, staff, committee, and advisory bodies.
• Lead with respect and tolerance. We expect all team members to embrace this notion and to express it in workplace interactions and through everyday practices.
• Own responsibility for any mistakes and take genuine and appropriate corrective action.

Following these principles, we embrace our ability and responsibility to dismantle barriers to equity and improve community conditions through all of Launchpad Baker’s work. Launchpad Baker abides by the following action items to help promote diversity and inclusion in our workplace: 

• We are committed to advancing Launchpad Baker’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work.
• Provide ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings for all board and staff members.
• Make services to non-English speakers accessible.
• Include diversity, equity, and inclusion as a standing agenda item for board and staff meetings.

Launch Pad Baker is in a geographically isolated rural / frontier area and therefor there are limitations inherent in our area including resources and services. Our organization stands in solidarity with those working on the frontlines of social justice movements and understand that economic disparity and racial/equity inequity are deeply interwoven; neither can be fully repaired without fixing the other. We are committed to continually improving our ability to contribute to a wholly just, sustainable, and inclusive Oregon economy.