Diversity, equity and inclusion

Our impact is through people. We partner with organisations within the charity and beyond profit sector to engage and appoint diverse, mission-driven talent.

At Prospectus we understand our leadership role as recruiters and advisors in building diverse and inclusive organisations, and will challenge and champion diversity and inclusion at all levels both externally and internally.

Prospectus helps mission driven organisations enhance cognitive as well as structural diversity. We are experts in finding and attracting candidates from diverse backgrounds and with a range of lived experiences. We are intentional, committed to ongoing learning and increased awareness, as well as shared ambition for change and deep partnerships with our community of clients and candidates.

Our candidate stats

The data below covers June 2022 – May 2023 and is taken from candidates who completed our equal ops statement (42,979 total). Summary statistics on our placed candidates is below and you can find a full granular breakdown in the dataset below:

These statistics are correct as of May 2023.

View Report Download full data set

Prospectus stats

Prospectus

Black and People of Colour: 21%
Declared a disability: 7%
LGBT+: 25%
Women: 56%

Management

Black and People of Colour: 9%
Declared a disability: 9%
LGBT+: 18%
Women: 45%

EDI commitments

We have recently established an EDI group to help support our own learning and challenge how we grow and develop in relation to EDI.

This includes:

  • Publicly sharing our data bi-annually on both our internal team diversity stats as well as those of our candidate base for our consultancy arm.
  • Develop a better understanding of how diverse candidates progress through a recruitment process from application to placement.
  • Committing to offering all clients a diversity report on any role delivered through our consultancy.
  • Any statistics generated are done in a granular way – e.g. not grouping people of colour into a category and ensuring a full breakdown of ethnicity / sex / gender etc. is recorded.
  • Offering all clients alternative application methods based on individual applicant needs, including accessible appointment briefs.
  • Our ongoing ambition is that a minimum of 50% of those we place into the sector are female, 30% are Black or People of Colour and 10% are disabled.
  • Commitment to being an anti-racist organisation. You can read our full Anti-Racism Statement here.

Partnerships

The Business in the Community

Inclusive recruitment Opening doors

In March 2022 Prospectus signed up to BITC’s five principles for inclusive recruitment. We have found these principles and the actions underpinning them an invaluable guide to focus on and develop our recruitment practices in this area.

The principles are:

  • Principle 1: Create partnerships which connect people from disadvantaged groups to your jobs
  • Principle 2: Show candidates that you’re committed to inclusion
  • Principle 3: Make sure job descriptions and adverts are comprehensive and use inclusive language
  • Principle 4: Focus on the essential skills and capabilities that are needed to do the job
  • Principle 5: Prioritise accessibility and eliminate bias

Race at Work Charter

Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter is a campaign for race equality in the workplace. Prospectus is signed up to the charter and can access tailored practical advice alongside BITC’s insights to drive long-term change.

Charityworks

Charityworks – the UK beyond profit sector’s graduate programme, open to all charities wanting to find great graduate talent in an affordable way. They recruit talented graduates from UK universities, receiving over 5,500 applications each year, to undertake a 12-month real role at a beyond profit organisation, and deliver an acclaimed leadership development programme contextualised to the sector. In 2020 Charityworks leapt from 7% to 30% people of colour representation this year, and at the moment the cohort is shaping up to look more than 1 in 2 people of colour.

Prospectus supports Charityworks with mentoring, career support and recruiting charity partners.

Show the Salary

Prospectus is proud to support the Show the Salary campaign and has signed the pledge to show the salary in role advertisements. Research shows that by advertising the salary for a role it helps improve application rates for women, Black people and people of colour as well as increasing the salary rate they are offered for a role, which will support closing the salary gap.

Prospectus signed the pledge in October 2020.

Accreditations

B Corp

Prospectus is proud to be a certified B Corp.

The B Corp movement in the UK is an exciting, growing and engaged network of organisations that are certified to meet rigorous standards across all stakeholders, including social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

Learn more about our B Corp status here.

Disability Confident Employer

Disability Confident is creating a movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. It was developed by employers’ and disabled people’s representatives to make it rigorous but easily accessible.

There are 3 levels and Prospectus is currently Disability Confident Employer (Level 2). We are currently working proactively to become a Disability Confident Leader (Level 3), the top level under the scheme.

Clear Company

Clear Company offer innovative, memorable training designed to implement consistency and best practice at all levels using:

  • A combination of theoretical and skills-based learning
  • Relatable content that everyone can apply to their role
  • Encourages personal action planning and accountability
  • Accredited programmes approach – testing knowledge transfer to reinforce the impact of the programme
  • Post Learning support for those requiring additional coaching to be successful
  • The entire Prospectus team – including non-client/candidate facing team members – is currently going through this accredited training programme.

Living Wage

Prospectus has been an accredited Living Wage Employer since 2014 and this applies not only for the team directly employed by Prospectus but also our immediate supply chain, including cleaners, IT support and office suppliers.

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