2022 Diversity & Socioeconomic Impact Report
In July 2020, we promised to create an annual report on the demographic and socioeconomic impact of Bluecoats programs, the diversity of our team, and the progress of our initiatives to advance inclusion and equity within our organization.
This is our third year of building this report—you can view previous reports here.
“As we enter our second fifty years, we are naturally drawn into the future. What will our programming, participants, and staff evolve to in the next fifty years? How can the Bluecoats organization fulfill our founding principles and bring performing arts education to the students of Canton? How can we make participation in the drum corps available to amazing young students who may not be able to afford it? And how can we work with our sister drum corps organizations, and Drum Corps International, to provide a wide array of drum corps and marching arts programming that ensures accessibility for everyone?
With those questions in mind, this document is both a report on our progress, and a re-commitment to our vision: an accessible Bluecoats organization, committed to delivering our mission equitably.”
From the self-reported data found in this report, we can see that students identifying as Black or African American are not represented at a percentage concomitant with U.S. population statistics. Likewise, staff identifying as Black or African American are underrepresented. In both corps participants and staff, women are significantly underrepresented. Lastly, self-reported socioeconomic data indicates that students from lower-income households are underrepresented in comparison to population statistics.
We know from casual observation that people of color are significantly underrepresented in leadership positions within the organization, including Board of Directors, caption heads, design team, and executive leadership. We also know that women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals are also underrepresented in many of these areas.
Following the data in this report, you will find a summary of the current initiatives to advance a more inclusive culture at Bluecoats. These initiatives include the Bluecoats Fellowship, re-organizing our hiring practices, providing free performing arts education to local students in under-resourced communities, and developing scholarship funds. Read them all in the report.
