2024
Diversity & Socioeconomic Impact Report
The Bluecoats organization is one that constantly works towards excellence both in our art and our practices. We continue to do our best to thrive in spite of changing times and conditions. In this, we seek to constantly analyze and improve our own commitment to creating a community based on dedication, creativity, diversity, belonging, and authenticity.
Our goal as the Diversity & Inclusion Council (DIAC) is to support all aspects of our Bluecoats Community in our shared commitment to embedding equality in the fabric of our work for all who are part of systematically marginalized populations, including Black people, people of color, women, queer and trans people, and other people from underrepresented communities. By having an honest assessment of who we are in the past, present and who we want to be in the future, we can create guide paths to aid in creating such an atmosphere and organization.
The data displayed in this report will guide the Board of Directors, executive team, and this council in identifying areas of growth where we can better serve the mission of the Bluecoats organization. We consider our commitment to Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination central to the strength of our organization and its cause.
Explore pages 24-27 on this report to learn more about how we put this commitment to action in our programs. In reading about our affiliation with En-Rich-Ment, the Bluecoats Fellowship, our open hiring processes, our formal policy on anti-racism, and our Learning Access program, we hope you will see that the work remains ongoing in all aspects of our organization.
We thank you for taking the time to review this report. We encourage members of our Bluecoats family curious about our methodology and practices, or interested in pursuing the goals outlined in this report, to contact us about becoming a member of the DIAC. Please contact our Kate McIlvain at kmcilvain@bluecoats.com to learn more. With Regards, The Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council
With regards,
The Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council
Kate McIlvain
Chair, Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council
[[REPLACE THIS WITH THE VIDEO]]? MAYBE IT GOES FIRST
Last April, the Bluecoats organization adopted a new Vision statement. It compels us to create “a Bluecoats Community enriched by a spectrum of programming, ranging from a student’s first experience with the performing arts to our world-renowned drum corps…”
As we begin to bring this vision to reality, we reflect on how this new spectrum of programs will strive to broaden the impact our organization has on students and community members of all backgrounds and socioeconomic status. A big piece of this mission bears fruit in our affiliation with EN-RICH-MENT, and the construction of the new Bluecoats’ EN-RICH-MENT Education Center in Downtown Canton.
EN-RICH-MENT, and this new education center, represent an exciting chapter in our organization's journey, one that seeks to broaden the spectrum of programming at Bluecoats, and aims to increase access to our life-enriching programs for underresourced students. We believe that by joining forces with EN-RICH-MENT, we can generate even more life-enriching outcomes, particularly across a wider socioeconomic and racial spectrum.
Mike Scott
CEO
Genevieve Geisler
CFO/COO
Methodology
In late 2019, we decided to build a new way to onboard participants in the drum corps, and to ensure that this new way voluntarily captured some demographic data including race identity, ethnicity, average household income, gender identity, and sex. This project was completed in time to onboard all members of what would have been the 2020 drum corps All data and analysis of the drum corps participant pool presented here comes from this collected data. We expect our data collection approach to change for 2021 based on what we have learned while compiling this report.
Staffing data was collected in order to gain a better understanding of our team while creating this report. Because the season was cancelled before many contracts were executed or a season could occur, the 2020 staff and volunteer data is understandably incomplete.
Executive Summary
At Bluecoats, we seek to increase and intensify efforts to ensure equitable access for and participation by people from all racial, ethnic, socio-economic backgrounds, genders, and LGBTQ+ identifications. We also seek to actively encourage and facilitate such participation.
In addition, we seek to form a staff and board of directors reflecting a diverse array of backgrounds and that best serves all of our constituents. A first step in this process is to collect the raw data from the students and staff we work with in order to set a baseline for future development. In 2020, the cancellation of many of our programs limited our ability to collect such data. However, we were able to collect demographic data for contracted 2020 participants and some employees and contract staff. This data is presented below.
In future years, Bluecoats will collect similar data from participants in all our programs, including Audition Experience Camps, THE BLUE WAY Summer Educational Experience and other educational events, School of the Arts programming, and the Browns Drumline.
As you will see in the data summaries below, there are areas where Bluecoats is leading the way in delivering programming to a diverse array of communities. However, you will also see that this diversity is not evenly distributed. For instance, while we have many people of color working as teachers, we don't see that same representation among our executive leadership or in the boardroom. A breakdown of section-by-section participant data would show that parts of the drum corps include higher representation of students of color or women, where other sections are overwhelmingly white and/or male.
This report is a valuable first step in establishing what indicators exist for future progress tracking. In that regard, it’s an important way for us to enlist the entire Bluecoats Community in holding the organization accountable for our progress as an organization. It is also an important snapshot of our “starting point” as we set out to advance diversity, equity & inclusion in our programs as well as our staff. We must make sure that Bluecoats brings its world-renowned performing arts educational leadership to a population of students that more closely reflects the population of the United States, and that along the way, leadership and employment opportunities are made available to all.
Following the data in this report, you will find a summary of the current initiatives in place or planned by the organization, and why we feel these measures are important goals for the organization’s efforts to advance a more inclusive culture. We hope you will agree that these initiatives and programs are valuable. Perhaps you will even be inspired to join with us and work to make the Bluecoats Community a leader in the performing arts space.
Programs
At Bluecoats, we create programs that enrich the lives of young people and celebrate the joys that art and the performing arts bring to the Bluecoats Community. As we reflect on our progress in bringing this mission to life, we must also reflect on how well we bring these life-enriching programs to everyone, and how inclusive this “Bluecoats Community” really is.
We believe that we must start any analysis of the efficacy of our programming by first analyzing who our programs reach, and how inclusive we are as an organization as we seek to expand that reach.
While the Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps is our most notable and recognizable program, the Bluecoats organization operates several programs. Our ensemble programs include Rhythm IN BLUE, the upcoming 50th Anniversary Alumni Corps, the Browns Drumline, and alumni-focused programs like Curbside and the Legacy Arc.
Additionally, we operate several learning programs like the Bluecoats Band of Excellence at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, THE BLUE WAY Summer Educational Experience, THE BLUE WAY Audition Experience Camps, Bluecoats School of the Arts, Learning Access, our school group ticketing program, and a partnership with a local agency called En-Rich-Ment which operates a free after school and weekend drumline program for under-resourced youth.
Eventually, our goal is for this annual Diversity & Socio-Economic Impact Report to provide details on the demographics and impact of all of the programs at Bluecoats. However, in this inaugural issue, we are reporting only on the drum corps because this is the only data we were able to reliably collect. This was possible because we chose to overhaul our on-boarding process in late 2019 and collect important demographic data at that point. Fortunately, this data was collected prior to the cancellation of our 2020 season and all related programs.
While a primary focus of our upcoming Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Action Plan will be the drum corps, we acknowledge that progress toward making the drum corps activity more inclusive will take time and that Bluecoats can make an outsized impact on the broader drum corps and marching band communities by encouraging progress through our other programs. We intend to use our programming as tools for progress, like placing a renewed focus on free and reduced ticket programming for our drum corps shows, which reach more than 20,000 fans each summer. Other examples include our Audition Experience Camps and Summer Educational Experiences, which are events that can help broaden the community of students impacted by our programs and, for one, help deepen the pipeline of non-white students entering the drum corps community at large.
Furthermore, our focus will not only be on how we can diversify the drum corps experience, but also how Bluecoats can reorient our mission to bring the incredible resources we share with our drum corps participants and fans to our local community, and to our neighboring communities of historically under-resourced populations.
Of course, these ideas will not be reflected in the data presented in this report, but we intend to outline these plans in our upcoming Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Action Plan, and to carefully examine our progress each year by looking at the data in these subsequent reports.
In the following sections you will see the report on demographic and socio-economic impact for the Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps, and a brief summary of our plans for capturing this data for other programs beginning in the 2021 programming year.