2020 Diversity & Socioeconomic Impact Report

As we plan a future for the Bluecoats organization, we must work to ensure that the Bluecoats Experience, and all of our performing art programming, reach both more people and a more diverse array of communities. Today we’re publishing our inaugural Diversity & Socioeconomic Impact Report, which provides an important snapshot of our “starting point” as we set out to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in our programs as well as our staff. As promised in July, our goal is to compile a report like this annually.

This annual Diversity & Socio-economic Impact Report will help the Council & executive team identify areas of improvement we need to address each year in order for our organization to represent the true beauty of diversity in the Bluecoats Community.

-Bryen Warfield and Ricardo Brown,
Co-Chairs, Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council

As you will see in the report, there are areas where Bluecoats is leading the way in delivering programming to a diverse array of communities. However, you will also see that this diversity is not evenly distributed. For instance, while we have many people of color working as teachers, we don't see that same representation among our executive leadership or in the boardroom. A breakdown of section-by-section participant data would show that parts of the drum corps include higher representation of students of color or women, where other sections are overwhelmingly white and/or male.

Women are underrepresented in both staff and student populations, particularly in music captions. In addition, self-reported socioeconomic data indicates that students from lower-income households are underrepresented in comparison to population statistics.

Following the data in this report, you will find a summary of the current initiatives to advance a more inclusive culture at Bluecoats. These initiatives include efforts to re-organize our hiring practices, provide free performing arts education to local students in under-resourced communities, and making our web properties more accessible. Read them all in the report.