B Lab Global Announces JEDI Strategic Plan
B Lab Global’s anti-racism stance, set forth in 2020, states that in order to be accountable business leaders, we must tackle racism and stand against injustice. However, given the mountainous endeavor before us, the questions remained: “How can we take the understanding gained from our learnings about racist and prejudiced systems & policies, and apply that to how we actualize our Theory of Change — and where do we start?”
Our JEDI Strategic Plan sets a direction based on our JEDI Baseline Principles and outlines tactics to implement these principles in every aspect of our work, including internal practices, policies, ways of working, and external Global Strategies and Programs.
With an ever-expanding community of B Corps and Global partners, a growing internal team, and an increased need to embed and sustain JEDI across stakeholder groups, the process outlined in the Strategic Plan sheds light on the aspects of our “global” conversations that we are ill-equipped to have. We elevate and acknowledge that we’ve discovered several gaps which we are committed to mitigating as we move forward:
Globally-centralized JEDI infrastructure
Insufficient globalized understanding and alignment on JEDI principles regarding racism, the concept of “Blackness,” and other polarizing topics
A tendency to label initiatives as “Global” without operationalizing a truly Global framework; intention does not match the impact
The Global Network is made up of dozens of regional and country partners, and the B Corp Movement consists of nearly 5,000 B Corps across 79 countries and 153 industries, plus tens of thousands of users of B Lab’s tools for impact measurement and stakeholder governance. Creating a JEDI Strategic Plan for this large and diverse group is not yet possible, something which became even clearer through this process. We hope that by enacting this plan, B Lab Global (BLG) will be better equipped to lead similar regionally-inclusive processes with GPs prior to 2025. By building a knowledgeable infrastructure of humans, processes, and policies across the network, we can find local solutions to Global problems, applying JEDI principles in standardized ways.
We hope this guide will be useful to Global Partners (even if BLG’s priorities may not fully resonate) as both:
A guide to understand B Lab Global’s overarching JEDI strategies which can be adapted for local, national, and regional priorities, and;
An outline which provides useful insights into aspects of the process and framework — from building equitable groups to creating an accessible resource to asking inclusive questions
B Lab Global’s JEDI Baseline Pillars of Focus are Racial Equity & Justice, Shifting the Power of Influence & Distributing Leadership, and Accountability. These pillars were used as guideposts for the inaugural JEDI Strategic Plan. Throughout the process, the JEDI Strategic Planning Working Group sought to create clear and direct connections between the Pillars, our Global Strategies, and the Theory of Change.
All of the Strategic Solutions were designed to address barriers to each of the three pillars. As such, it is imperative for the B Lab Network’s staff and leaders to not only fully understand the Pillars, but understand the application of the principles to their work.
The B Lab Global JEDI team, working with a testing group for feedback, has created training modules which are designed for staff and our Global Partners to do a deeper dive into each of the pillars in a self-paced, digestible format. These are available internally to B Lab Global and Global Partner staff at b-lab.thinkific.com.