With McKinsey & Company reporting that businesses with more diverse teams —whether that’s racially, socio economically or educationally— are 35% more profitable than organizations that are not1, tech start-up Confetti, a website for booking virtual corporate development and team building events, has launched a new Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) collection of 27 distinctive team building experiences, aiming to release 5 new experiences every month.
 
The new roster of experiences from Confetti ranges from a Black History Storytelling Tour and a Bollywood Workout Class to Women’s History Jeoparty and a virtual game show on LGBTQIA+ History and Culture. All the experiences are delivered by members of the respective community. 
 
During the pandemic, Confetti pivoted online to offer virtual team building experiences for remote and hybrid working teams across the US. Now, having seen take-up of its events increase significantly, it is doubling down on its commitment to focus on DE&I, providing a user-friendly channel for companies to develop and implement their own DE&I strategies. 
 
“We are helping companies build a stronger culture by providing shared experiences for a distributed workforce,” explains Lee Rubin, founder of Confetti. “We can now enable companies to discover hundreds of exclusive team building, DE&I and professional development ideas and instantly book memorable experiences for their teams.”
 
“I’ve been in the industry for more than 8 years now, and it was really moving for me to see this be the first year that Black History Month took off. Pride Month has been popular for a handful of years, and to see other marginalized communities  now represented from a corporate perspective makes me hold onto the hope that we’re making progress as a society to be inclusive and diverse.”
 
And putting in place a proactive DE&I programme also makes sound business sense. Deloitte2 research found that “organisations with inclusive cultures are twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets, three times more likely to be high performing, six times more likely to be innovative and agile, and eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes”.
 
More than 400 Pride-themed team building experiences were booked in June through the Confetti platform, with overwhelmingly positive responses.
 
Following their Pride-themed event, Sean from healthcare provider SimpleHealth commented:
“It was important for us to create engaging events that celebrated the beauty and significance of PRIDE while also supporting LGBTQIA+ professionals. PRIDE Bingo provided an engaging, vibrant experience that included a brief history of PRIDE while also supporting a local Drag Queen and her artistry. 
 
“For some of our employees, this was their first experience with the art of Drag as well as understanding the foundational significance of what PRIDE stands for. Confetti allowed us to reach our remote workforce and build community seamlessly.” 
 
And it’s the authenticity of the experiences that is crucial, says Lee:
 
“My management team and myself had several long, meaningful conversations about what allyship means. We knew we wanted to give our customers authentic experiences and we knew we wanted to be good allies. So, long story short, we decided only to use vendors who were from the represented community. It did make our job harder, but we decided the best way to be a true ally was to support communities directly by putting money into their pockets, even if that meant Confetti making less.” 
 
More information at www.withconfetti.com
 
Ends.
 
 
  1. Source: https://www.mckinsey.com
  2. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2020/10/15/fostering-an-inclusive-culture-is-a-business-imperative-not-a-trend/?sh=7c78f9194302