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DEI Self-Assessment for Financial Institutions

The DEI Self-Assessment offers financial institutions an opportunity to discover resources to assist their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Organizational Commitment

How well does your organization’s DEI commitment reflect in its policies and practices? The first set of joint standards, by the Interagency Policy Statement Establishing Joint Standards for Assessing the Diversity Policies and Practices of Entities Regulated by the Agencies, is for organizational commitments to diversity and inclusion.

Why does your organization’s DEI definition matter?

First, DEI statements demonstrate leadership’s commitments and priorities.

When leadership also explains how DEI directly aligns with your entities’ vision, mission, and values it’s easier to understand how each person plays a key role in success.

How does your organization define DEI?

This may present differently based on the communities you serve, geographic location, and products you offer.

For example:

  • An entity focusing on mortgage loans may review data and define equitable access to homeownership within your DEI statement.
  • An entity offering business loans might focus on supporting local economic development and supporting all communities participating in regional opportunities.
  • Diversifying staff, managers, and board members may prioritize understanding trauma experiences around money or barriers to inclusion.   

Workforce Diversity

Workforce diversity includes financial institutions board, management, and workforce. The above referenced interagency standards talk to how an entity can “promote the fair inclusion of minorities and women in it is workforce and noted that many entities evaluate their business objectives using analytical tools to track and measure workforce inclusion.”

DFI continues to receive feedback during community meetings that underserved communities want to feel safe when selecting and working with a financial institution. This goes beyond race, ethnicity, and gender and focuses on how people feel. This includes things like:

  • Connections with community organizations and individuals.
  • Experiences around money (and trauma).
  • Understanding barriers to inclusion and ideas to address those barriers (i.e., language, justice involved, credit invisible, etc.).
  • Understanding local jobs and industry (i.e., seasonal employment, on-demand work, etc.).
  • Understanding how people engage with financial institutions and how to support success (i.e., accessing programs like inclusive deposit accounts).

What can financial institutions do to enhance workforce diversity?

Engage local community members and learn what attributes are important to them for leadership, new hires, and board members (i.e., people who participate in community events, people with experience with trauma, etc.).

People are diverse and data demonstrating diverse and inclusive demographics is an interagency standard. We also know diversity is broader than demographics and working with the communities you serve will help you be more successful in meeting your customers’ and communities’ expectations. 

Resources:

  • Learn about Washington State sector strategies for supporting workforce development in the financial sector.
  • Participate in the Next Generation Leadership Workshop to encourage people in your community to learn about financial sector jobs. 

Supplier Diversity

The third area addressed in the interagency standard is supplier diversity. “These included a supplier diversity policy that provides a fair opportunity for minority-owned and women-owned businesses to compete for procurement of business goods and services; methods to evaluate and assess supplier diversity (which may include metrics and analytics); and practices that promote a diverse supplier pool.”

Supplier diversity strategies can follow the same models as above:

  • Commitment that aligns with entity values, such as buying locally to support reinvesting in local economic development, buying from under-resourced businesses, or supporting entities that are hiring under-employed individuals.
  • Diversity that aligns with your commitment and is inclusive.

There are several different definitions and certifications for small and diverse businesses, and you can recognize multiple certifications:

  • Federally defined socio-economic status (federal database, General Service Administration video about how to search for firms).
  • WA state certifications and local government certifications/ self-identification.
  • Corporate supplier diversity designations (minority-owned, veteran-owned, women-owned, owned by person(s) with a disability, LGBT business enterprise, etc.).
  • Unique definitions established by your entity (i.e., based in low-income zip codes, hire under employed individuals, etc.). 

No matter what designation your entity supports, it is best if the method can be tracked and spend can be measured over time. This can be done with a field in your accounting systems tied to payment tracking, a report that can be pulled with the information you already collect, or a more robust system that verifies certification and payment.

If you are not ready to track data, you can also track relationships and outcomes. This is a focused effort to start taking steps to broaden your competitive pool. Where does your entity feel comfortable engaging new businesses and what do you learn from that process? Businesses might need time to learn your processes, and there should be a business benefit such as new ideas, better terms, demonstrating your commitment to reinvest in the communities you serve.

Resources:

Transparency of DEI Activities

Being transparent about your DEI initiatives—by publicly sharing your goals and progress—fosters accountability and trust. Work with the individuals you want to include. Everyone is unique, and there is value in more perspectives when developing policies, reports, and other DEI materials.