Racial Equity Initiative

Justice reform

In June 2020, we committed $50 million over five years to strengthen and expand our existing Justice Reform Initiative. We’re expanding access to data driven insights and to date, we’ve established 80+ distinct partnerships with 70 unique organizations working to provide alternatives to incarceration and accelerate the adoption of new models of public safety. Together, these organizations serve 145 different cities and counties across the US.

As part of our commitment to eliminating racial disparities in prosecution practices, for example, we support the Vera Institute of Justice Reshaping Prosecution program which partners with prosecutors to use the power of their offices to improve safety in their communities by addressing systemic racism. The Reshaping Prosecution program has helped three prosecutor offices implement policies to deter engagement in pretextual stops in Ingham County, MI; Chittenden County, VT; and Ramsey County, MN. Under these policies, prosecutors will not take cases if they arise from a non-public safety stop, which disproportionately impact Black and African American communities and have not been shown to improve or enhance public safety.

Skills and education grants

We completed the first year of programming for 50 nonprofit workforce development and digital skilling groups led by and serving Black and African American communities accounting for $15 million in grants, capacity building support, and tech enablement services that have reached nearly 8,000 people.

Of the 50 organizations, 49 are new grantees to Microsoft, including the Hidden Genius Project in Oakland, which trains and mentors young Black men in technology creation and entrepreneurship; and TechBridge in Atlanta, which aims to break the cycle of poverty through the innovative use of technology.

We have also given $8 million in grants to 18 Historically Black Colleges and Universities and associations to support curriculum development, student scholarships and mentoring, faculty training, and virtual learning.

Broadband connectivity

We have launched partnerships and projects driving adoption of affordable broadband, devices, and skilling in eight target cities: Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Memphis, Milwaukee, and New York City.

Our projects will work to connect Black and African American families and families from other marginalized backgrounds to affordable broadband, computers, and digital skills, with a goal of improving outcomes in education, healthcare, and economic opportunity.

We also began addressing broadband availability and adoption across the Black Rural South through new connectivity partnerships in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, as well as support for Black Churches 4 Digital Equity, a Multicultural Media, Telecom, and Internet Council (MMTC) coalition. Additionally, to influence and target public investments for communities most impacted by the digital divide, we implemented a policy and advocacy strategy through our Digital Equity Playbook for state and local policymakers.

Nonprofits

We introduced our Nonprofit Tech Acceleration for Black and African American Communities program, which uses data, technology, and partnerships to help local organizations across the country modernize and streamline operations with technical solutions including technology donations, discounts, and services.

The program works with organizations large and small at all stages, including startup nonprofits. To date, we have helped more than 1,500 local organizations across more than 1,100 communities accelerate their missions and drive greater impact through digital transformation. We’re currently tracking towards our long-term goal of helping more than 20,000 nonprofits.

Culture of inclusion

Strengthening a culture of inclusion is about a company-wide, sustained focus on understanding and practicing the behaviors that can improve the lived experience for all employees at Microsoft. Shared language and shared understanding go a long way in building the foundation for those culture shifts.

Starting with learning, as of June 30, 2022, more than 98 percent of employees have completed the required D&I learning courses on allyship, covering, privilege, and unconscious bias in the workplace.

In FY21 we introduced the Race and Ethnicity Learning Path as the first of four personalized learning experiences enabling employees to take ownership of their D&I learning journey by engaging with curated and tailored content. We also launched specific content on being an Informed Ally via an experience that provokes moments of reflection, activation of basic inclusive behaviors, and drives commitment to action.

The people manager community is making progress for required learning and discussions on D&I. As we strive to increase manager capability on inclusion, we are curating learning & enablement content to allow them to be successful in a hybrid environment. To continue our commitment to leverage our resources to help accelerate diversity & inclusion across our ecosystem, we added new thought leadership videos to our Inclusion Journey site. These feature external experts who speak to how we can create a culture of inclusion for members of the Black and African American community with Dr. Lawrence Bobo and members of the Hispanic and Latinx community with Dr. G. Cristina Mora. In addition, we added expert videos about the Ideal Affect and the way it impacts members of the Asian community in the workplace with Dr. Jeanne L. Tsai, and on the evolution of families in today's society with Rebecca Walker.

Career planning and talent development

Growing global networks, enhancing business acumen, building skills, and leadership development have never been more important. With that in mind, we're continuing to invest in programs internally and partnerships externally that provide employees with a variety of options throughout their careers to learn and explore across professional opportunities and leadership excellence. These programs will expand to include other employee groups as we learn and grow.

We have launched 38 cohorts of our mid-level and senior-level differentiated development programs to date, with further staged cohorts planned for this year and beyond. Differentiated development programs have positive effects on employee experience and career development because they provide psychological safety for learning and growth, but they are only one offering in the larger suite of learning and development programs for all employees. The nine-month experience is opt-in. Direct managers of all participants are required to participate in a parallel track to support and grow how they understand and support their employees.

We continue to invest in dedicated leadership development programs for executives. Dedicated talent discussions are happening in every organization prior to an employee’s promotion to senior roles.

Accountability for progress

Sustained progress on representation requires deep accountability at the most senior levels of the company. Over the last five years, Microsoft has increased representation across demographics and levels. We continue to report externally on our progress annually, most recently in our 2022 Global Diversity & Inclusion Report with both a report document and associated videos to share progress on our commitments to work toward long-term systemic change.

To accelerate progress, we are providing external coaches to executives. The initial coaching pilot was completed in FY21 and over 100 executives have participated in this program to date with more planned.

We are focused on enhancing the hiring and interview processes to include discussions on both culture and inclusion for management positions and employee hiring broadly. We launched an updated Inclusive Hiring Training available to interviewers and required for all managers in FY23.

We have made significant progress toward fulfilling our commitment to double the number of Black and African American and Hispanic and Latinx leaders in the US by 2025.

As of June 30, 2022, we are 116 percent of the way to our goal for Black and African American people managers (below director level), and 92.0 percent of the way for Black and African American directors+ (people managers and individual contributors). Additionally, we are 46.5 percent of the way for Hispanic and Latinx people managers (below director level), and 57.6 percent of the way for Hispanic and Latinx directors+ (people managers and individual contributors).

Through our company-wide One Microsoft Diversity & Inclusion Plan, we are amplifying, accelerating, and activating a diverse and inclusive workplace. The Plan outlines priorities and company-wide expectations for all employees, managers, and executives, enabling action for impact across our geographies and organizations and holding us accountable to our commitments.

Broadening our work with suppliers

To date, we have increased the number of Black and African American-owned approved suppliers by more than 300 percent. We have also accomplished more than 90 percent of our goal to spend an incremental $500 million with double the number of Black and African American-owned suppliers.

We’re continuing to encourage Black and African American representation progress in our top 100 suppliers, which account for over 50 percent of our indirect spend, by requesting annual disclosure of their diversity profile information (e.g., workforce diversity) and diversity and inclusion supplier self-assessments. We have also made several enhancements to our supplier policies, sourcing processes, and tools. Specifically, we have digitally transformed our diversity certification validation process to accurately identify diverse-owned businesses for supplier diversity program benefits.

To ensure new suppliers are ready for business and receive adequate resources and support to be successful at Microsoft, we have implemented a program called AMP’D (Advocates, Mentors, Peers for Diverse Suppliers) that focuses on supplier mentorship, advocacy, development, and access to capital programs through our banking relationships. AMP’D pairs Black and African American-owned suppliers with an advocate in the business, a mentor and/or supplier peers to help suppliers easily connect and address the topics most important to their businesses.

We have also implemented a supplier diversity strategy for our corporate-wide contingent staffing program, called Contractor Services, to increase participation and spending with Black and African American-owned suppliers. In the past year, we made significant enhancements to this program, increasing spend with Black and African American-owned suppliers by more than 90 percent.

Investment in financial institutions

We are using our own banking needs to grow our portfolio investment activity with Black and African American-owned financial institutions. In June of 2020, we committed to double the percentage of our transaction volumes through these institutions by 2023. Two years later, we have exceeded our goal, increasing the percentage to more than 2.5x prior levels. In addition, we are increasing investment activity with Black and African American-owned asset managers.

We have also met our goal of creating a $100 million program focused on mission-driven banks. Since then, we have made investments focused on strengthening these institutions­–directly enabling them to deploy increased capital in local communities. For example, we have committed to the Mission-Driven Bank Fund as an anchor investor in collaboration with the FDIC to target Minority Owned Depository Institutions (MDIs), which directly enables an increase of funds into local community businesses, restaurants, housing, etc. We also invested in the Entrepreneur Backed Asset Fund investment to increase capital to MDIs and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)​.

Additionally, we have accomplished our $50 million commitment to create an investment fund focused on supporting Black and African American-owned small businesses. The fund focuses on investing to improve access to capital, increasing skill development, and reducing the technology gaps that exist today. Some of these investments include:

• Clear Vision Impact Fund investment with Siebert Williams Shank, created to mitigate deficits in capital access that minority-owned businesses often encounter and to enhance the positive impact that these companies have on the communities in which they operate.
• Investment in the Southern Opportunity and Resilience Fund aimed at helping small businesses and nonprofits in southern and southeastern states with less than 50 employees navigate and rebuild from the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.
• Investment in the Morgan Stanley Next Level Fund, which primarily focuses on early-stage technology and technology-enabled companies with diverse or women members as part of the founding team.

Partner investment

Partners are vital to ecosystem growth and transformation, which is why we’ve continued our investments to increase the number of Black and African American-owned partners in our US partner community. Since June 2020, the number of identified Black and African American partners has increased by more than 150 percent, surpassing our initial growth goal of 20 percent by 2023.

In addition to rapid growth in Black and African American-owned technology partners in the Microsoft Partner Network, we have also built active partnerships with technology communities such as Black Women Talk Tech, Black is Tech, Black Men in Tech, and Black and Brown Founders and have sponsored and participated in conference opportunities. Currently, we are building longer term future partnerships with these organizations to share how Microsoft supports partners and founders and works collaboratively to support Black and African American-owned business growth.

The Black Partner Growth Initiative (BPGI) has evolved as an umbrella portfolio of programs and projects to reach, recruit, support, and learn from Black and African American–owned businesses who become partners in the Microsoft ecosystem. We have also recognized the necessity of providing access to capital, cashflow support, and business training. We have utilized $3 million towards training programs covering financial management, tech solutions, and go-to-market readiness for Black partners.

We are working towards the following program investments, currently as pilots:

• We are helping Black and African American-owned partners leverage our $50 million general partner fund that helps with access to capital and providing loans to support partners through their startup phase, with the loans recovered over time as their business grows.
• A $20 million financing program for existing and new Black and African American partners to support their cashflow needs.

Along with these programs, we are continuing to invest in areas where Black and African American partners are creating impact for the business community. We are accomplishing this through strategic relationships such as the Black Channel Partner Alliance (BCPA): an economic empowerment initiative founded by and for Black and African American partners to deepen partner-to-partner relationships, expand development opportunities, provide business mentorship/coaching, and fuel inclusive community growth.