By Cynthia Constantinou and Ayleah Hanton, Sage DE&I Taskforce Co-Chairs

An Intentional Approach to DE&I

Since its founding in 2004, Sage has been committed to fostering and preserving a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and belonging. These core principles are embedded in every dimension of Sage’s work, including our internal operations and policies, client services, community engagement, and events.

Amid increasing public discourse on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in 2020, Sage felt it was necessary to formalize its dedication to these principles and launched its own DE&I Taskforce.

“True to our growth mindset, the introspective experience opened our eyes and pushed us to take a holistic, results-focused approach. The Sage DE&I Taskforce has made remarkable strides in our mission to create an open and supportive community where everyone is valued, treated equally and encouraged to bring their authentic selves. As storytellers, diversity in communications is paramount to better reflect the diversity of our world.” — Duyen Truong, SVP - PR Operations

The DE&I Taskforce strives to achieve these goals via a three-pillar approach. The first pillar is a commitment to educating our workforce on various DE&I related topics, such as unconscious bias and microaggressions, through interactive training and activities with the goal of empowering all Sagers to be advocates for themselves and others. The second is to ensure Sage’s external and internal communications serve as a platform for diverse voices and reflect DE&I values. The third pillar is to deepen Sage’s relationships with various communities and organizations and build a pipeline of candidates with diverse experiences.

Our Commitment to Help Diversify the Communications Field

In alignment with this third pillar, we're proud to announce the Sage Communications Scholarship Award. In partnership with Leadership Greater Washington and its Youth Leadership Greater Washington program, Sage will provide a scholarship award of $1,500 to help a rising or current college student who is from a historically underrepresented group offset school-related expenses.

Sage recognizes the unfortunate and unacceptable reality that higher education is less accessible to marginalized groups than it is to privileged populations. The result of this inequity has a ripple effect in the professional world.

In 2021, the Diversity Action Alliance reported in its “Race and Ethnicity in Public Relations and Communications Benchmark Report” that only 21% of employees are racially and ethnically diverse among over 100 U.S.-based PR and communications organizations. In 2022, the Association of National Advertisers reported that the overall ethnic skew of the marketing and advertising industry is now 32.3%.

In light of these alarming statistics, the goal of the scholarship is to uplift and support a student from a historically underrepresented community or background who is interested in a career in communications, graphic design, journalism, marketing, or public relations.

“Being intentional and action-driven is how we do everything at Sage, from our leadership style and internal processes to how we serve clients and our broader community. We strongly believe that providing educational pathways and opportunities to underserved individuals strengthens our community as a whole.” — David Gorodetski, Founder and CEO, and Julie Murphy, President

This scholarship is a natural extension of the Sage DE&I Taskforce’s growth. For the past few years, we’ve conducted annual internal employee surveys to gauge Sage’s effectiveness toward promoting diversity within our company and among the community. Due to the unwavering diligence and compassion of our committee members, the feedback on these surveys has improved each year. For example, in 2023, 86% of Sagers agreed that the company is taking effective steps to increase diversity and inclusion in the workplace, a figure that is up from 69% in 2021.

While we’ve significantly improved our internal offerings and DE&I programs, we believe it is essential for this impact to extend far beyond our own workforce. It’s our sincere hope that this scholarship will make a notable difference for a student and help them pursue a higher education in the communications industry.

Interested in applying?

• Applications are due no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on April 15, 2024.

• Applicants must be a high school senior or current undergraduate student at an accredited, four-year college or university; member of a historically underrepresented group; and have a 3.0+ GPA.

• Interested students should visit this link for how to apply.