Our Commitment to Stand Against Anti-Blackness and Systemic Racism

As we approach nearly a year of the global reckoning on anti-Blackness and systemic racism in our society, Instacart will continue to be an advocate for the Black community and drive systemic change in what we can impact and own within our company and the communities we serve.

Today, we’re proud to share how we’re prioritizing our Diversity, Equity, and Belonging efforts as we focus on workforce equity, workplace belonging, responsible citizenship, and product inclusion. To learn more, read the blog below from Instacart Founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta.

To our Instacart community,

Last year, there was a national reckoning of systemic injustice across our communities. As an organization, we’ve been on a journey to better understand how we could further support the Black community. In 2021, we’re working to increase equitable outcomes in our systems and processes at Instacart.

The issues we’re watching unfold are part of larger, systemic inequities that are much bigger than any one company or person can tackle alone. As a leadership team, we’re prioritizing what we can impact today, within Instacart, and across the communities we serve, including the following this year:

1.Observing Juneteenth as an official company holiday moving forward for all corporate employees, both in the U.S. and Canada. We encourage our teams to use this day to reflect, listen, learn, and engage in critical conversations around racial injustice.

2. Prioritizing three demographics in our talent strategy — Black, Women, and Latinx Talent — and investing in Black Talent across the entire employee lifecycle. This means addressing the root causes of our opportunities and increasing equitable outcomes for employees throughout their careers at Instacart. Specifically, there will be focused efforts such as transforming hiring, developing, and retaining Black Talent.

3. Acknowledging and advocating that food insecurity is a social justice issue that disproportionately affects the Black community. We believe we’re uniquely positioned to help overlooked and underserved communities by supporting food banks. As a part of this effort, we’ll be:

• Extending our partnership with Feeding America and Food Banks Canada Network. We’re focusing our work on those specific food banks serving predominantly Black communities with the largest social economic and health disparities in North America.
• This summer, we will launch a partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America to support local Clubs that serve predominantly Black youth, families, and communities. It is often overlooked that hunger is a contributing factor to learning loss, and this is a critically important time for kids and teens as they rebound from a year where COVID-19 has widened systemic inequalities. By providing grocery credit and Instacart Express memberships, Clubs will be able to provide supplementary meals and groceries to nearly 5,000 youth and their families.

4. Leveraging our Volunteer Time Off policy and additional tools to ensure employee volunteering is scalable year-round and enables our teams to more easily connect to causes they care about. In June, we’ll also be promoting volunteer opportunities to specifically support the Black Community.

5. Intentionally lifting up Black businesses within the Instacart marketplace.

6. Advocating for voting rights in the U.S. We know the history of how our country has made it difficult for Black communities to vote, and we proudly stand in support of fair and equitable voting rights as the cornerstone of our democracy.

This is a journey for us. I want to assure you that we will be intentional and authentic in this work, and lean into the opportunities that we can influence. We have work to do and we are not shying away from the conversations and actions that will get us there.

Apoorva

Instacart

Author

Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 85,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.