happy birthday!
DiversityInc Magazine Turns 5
This issue celebrates the fifth anniversary
of this magazine—and next year will mark
the 10th anniversary of www.DiversityInc.com.
DiversityInc is a business publication that targets a
line-management audience. Our editorial mission is
to explain the connection between diversity and the
bottom line.
Our company has always been privately held by
Luke Visconti and Foulis Peacock. We have no outside
investors and no long-term debt. Our independence
has allowed DiversityInc to have a strong point of
view; we don’t claim to be impartial, but we demand of
ourselves the highest editorial integrity.
We believe that diversity management can be
measured and results quantified, which is why we
launched the ultimate diversity competition, The
DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®, eight
years ago. We made the commitment to have credible
metrics drive our Top 50 list and have worked hard
on transparent and robust methodology. That effort
has been rewarded by increasing corporate participation. In 2003, we had 118 participants; last year, 317
companies competed for a spot and more than 600
companies requested a survey. We now have more
data on corporate-diversity efforts and results than
any other entity, including the federal government.
Corporate interest in diversity management
is being driven by the dramatically changing
demographics of our country as well as the rapidly
globalizing business economy. Smart companies are
building environments based on mutual respect of
differences—plurality. This attracts the widest range
of talent, customers, investors and suppliers. It also
builds stronger relationships, which drives increased
margin and higher customer loyalty.
Diversity is a sensitive subject, one that stirs emotions; however, we feel that the failure to declare clear
values and standards causes most of the problems. We
regularly make editorial decisions for long-term values
that we know will cost us short-term money. Like
most publications, the overwhelming majority of our
revenue comes from advertisers and companies that
post jobs in our career center. Although smart companies know that our editorial is what drives reader
interest and advertising response, our strong LGBT
support has caused us to lose more advertisers than
any other subject. We have never backed down from
that support—and we never will.
In closing, we want to make note of our front
cover. It features Redia Anderson Banks of Deloitte &
Touche, who was also on the cover of the first issue.
She was invited to appear on our first cover because
she epitomized the strength and dignity of a powerful
woman of color in corporate America, but the most
critical point in selecting her was that, at that time,
Deloitte did absolutely no business with DiversityInc.
What’s next? We will continue to drive circulation.
Audited circulation for the magazine is currently
191,000—we have a goal of 300,000 for 2008.
The web site achieved a remarkable milestone in
September: 1 million unique visitors. Our goal for
2008 is 3 million unique monthly visitors. We’re also
investing in a significant increase in benchmarking
analysis sophistication. This will become a reality in
2008. We plan to continue the growth of our career
center, which is now sold by nine newspapers across
the country (as well as our own sales force). You will
see us increase our network of allied career centers
that represent vertical communities. Finally, we will
seek to extend the philanthropy we direct through
the DiversityInc Foundation. Our goal is to donate 2
percent of our gross revenue to support scholarships
in higher education.
