The organizations and advocates we work with are wonderfully diverse. But the talent pool of communication practitioners and story coaches is not.
Over the next few months, we will be launching an initiative that’s been three years in the making. It’s called ALL VOICES and we’ve created it because we believe the communication field can do a better job of equitably and authentically representing and serving diverse communities of advocates.
With ALL VOICES we want to help increase the number of communication practitioners and story coaches with diverse lived experiences and identities.
That’s our “why.” Here’s the story behind it.
Representation matters.
We—Tim Cage and John Capecci—founded Living Proof Advocacy (LPA) as a company dedicated to the success of those working to promote equity, justice and antiracism (as well as the arts, community, health and safety, and environmentalism).
We are also white, cisgender gay men, a demographic pretty well represented in the predominately white field of communication.*
Following the murder of George Floyd and the worldwide social movement that came with it, we joined countless other organizations and individuals who were motivated to intentionally and mindfully work for a more just and equitable world. We challenged ourselves to do so seriously and humbly, asking what this meant to us both personally and professionally.
In late 2020, we began sketching out a roadmap for LPA with specific actions we could take, such as:
transforming LPA into a multicultural, antiracist organization (What’ that?)
converting LPA into a public benefit corporation (What’s that?)
articulating and making public the values that drive our work and what we stand for
helping create opportunities for and partner with those who have perspectives and life experiences different from our own
making an impact on the broad field of communication
ALL VOICES is an important point on our roadmap.
Building an inclusive program
To design ALL VOICES—knowing the limitations of our particular lenses and positionality—we assembled an advisory board of diverse professionals who could look at our plan through different eyes and from different perspectives. Their feedback was invaluable and, we hope, has resulted in a program that is accessible, challenging, inclusive, motivating and highly enjoyable.
We love the work we are so fortunate to do and look forward to sharing it with and learning from others.
If you’d like to be contacted when the program launches, let us know here.
If you have questions or thoughts about our initiative, or would like to know more contact us at
*The majority of communications professionals are white women. https://datausa.io/profile/cip/communications#demographics; https://www.zippia.com/communications-specialist-jobs/demographics/