Our Pledge
By adopting this Walla Walla Valley Wine Diversity Pledge, our wine business and its management shows our support for these principles:
- We strive to be a welcoming industry that values all people and reflects the Walla Walla community.
- Everyone who works in the wine business here or visits Walla Walla Valley to enjoy our wines should always feel safe and welcome.
- We believe that diversity strengthens us as a community and as a business.
- We are committed to actions that support these principles and enable the Walla Walla Valley wine industry to continuously improve upon how we live up to them.
- We will ensure that the physical and behavioral environment of our business demonstrates our commitment to supporting diversity and inclusion.
- We will seek diversity in the businesses who work with us as suppliers and vendors.
- We will thoughtfully consider diversity and inclusion objectives in our hiring and development of employees at all levels. We will seek diversity at all levels of our business.
- We will educate our individual organizations and our teams on the subject matter of diversity and inclusion
- We will support efforts in wine media and promotions to reflect Walla Walla as a diverse and welcoming place.
Each year, we will hold ourselves accountable and evaluate our progress in successfully meeting these commitments. We will collaborate with other wine businesses in the Valley to identify new and more effective ways to live up to our stated principles and commitments.
We will also hold the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance accountable for establishing annual goals to support diversity and inclusion in how we, as a group, act, communicate and promote to our stakeholders and audiences.
We encourage all members who would like to do so to add this Pledge to their website and share with their customers in any manner of their liking. The Wine Alliance will not be tracking members who endorse the Pledge, and this is a purely optional resource for your business.
Diversity & Inclusion Resource Toolbox
-
Human Resources
-
Diversity & Inclusion in hiring
- What is DEI? Why Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Matter in HR (helioshr.com)
- Diversity Recruiting | Diverse staffing is more than an obligation (circaworks.com)
- 5 Ways to Ensure You Have True Diversity Within Your Business (entrepreneur.com)
How ensure that your employee handbook is equitable
– Employee training resources
-
Education
-
How to educate yourself and your team about different types of diversity:
- Racial/ethnic Issues
- Articles
- Does The Wine Industry Have A Racism Problem? (forbes.com)
- Your Wine Glass Ceiling is My Wine Glass Box. An Open Letter to Karen MacNeil and the Wine Industry. — Julia Coney
- Being Black in the White World of Wine | SevenFifty Daily
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack’ and ‘Some Notes for Facilitators’ | National SEED Project
- A Voice for Black Winemakers | Wine Spectator
- Books
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Articles
- Gender Issues
- Socioeconomic Issues
- Disability and Accessibility Issues
- Racial/ethnic Issues
-
Training
-
Firms specializing in this topic of Diversity & Inclusion – professional training and consultation for individual businesses:
- Home (theproximitycollective.com) – utilized by WA Wine, recommended by Crux
- Cultures Connecting | Race Relations in the 21st Century
- Fleur Larsen Facilitation – from Oregon Wine Board training in December 2021
- Pryor Learning, Inc. – Why Diversity Matters Document
- Pryor Learning, Inc – Why Diversity Matters Seminar
Communications and messaging best practices
From Willamette Valley Wine Association Member Resources webpage
- Keep in mind…
- Racism is not new and systemic inequalities have always existed in the United States
- People of color have been trying to draw attention to these problems for a very long time
- The bar (not being racist) is very low; simply declaring that you are not racist is not a PR tactic
- Don’t post anything on which you can’t follow through: ask yourself if what you are saying is actionable, and if you were asked about it six months from now, what you would have to show for it
About the Diversity & Inclusion Work Group
The Mission of the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group, established in January 2021, is to broaden the target audiences and membership of the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance through inclusion and representation in our programming and marketing, and through diversity education and resources for all Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance members and their teams.