Creating an online safe space
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Recent cases of abuse of power and inappropriate / unprofessional behaviour in the Venture Capital and Tech community have highlighted the need to create safe spaces for entrepreneurs and VCs to share their experiences so this behaviour can be identified and addressed. Therefore, we want to create an online safe space in which those who need to share experiences of sexual harassment and abuses of power can do so anonymously and confidentially.
As part of our mission to foster a fairer and more diverse VC industry, facilitating the kind of dialogue is of paramount importance to us.
We are collaborating with other individuals and organisations on this challenge and want your help and input on what format or kind of space space would be most valuable to you. Please email thoughts, suggestions and ideas to info@diversity.vc on contact us directly on Twitter or Medium.
Farooq Abbasi, Francesca Warner, Ben Goldsmith, Anna Boffetta, Lillian Li, Travis Winstanley.
We’d like to go on record in saying that we are saddened and disappointed that such abuses of power exist in our industry today, and that this dialogue is necessary. However, venture capital is brimming with brilliant people, and it has the potential to be an influential driver of demonstrable, positive change. The conversations we have today will help us create the venture capital industry that everyone in the community deserves.
Some other helpful resources:
- A template for investor/founder sexual harassment policy https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/05/harassment-policy-template/
- Invest Europe Professional Guidelines: https://www.investeurope.eu/media/431779/invest-europe-professional-standards-handbook-2015.pdf
- Brittany’s great guidance on the issue of sexual harassment in VC: https://hackernoon.com/a-better-path-to-decency-will-tech-lead-the-way-ebd055c2482e
- Project Include resources on ‘implementing culture (for start-ups but applies to VCs) http://projectinclude.org/implementing_culture#
- How to define harassment https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm
- Form, put together by Brittany Laughlin of Lattice VC: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhg6mPQSMHXKEpAgxCTX0VhZOUGR6yq05ZTjMdvMsjRMnl4Q/viewform
If there are other useful resources on this topic — please let us know in the comments below.
